


Army of Coldness

by WendyNerd



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Army of Darkness - Freeform, Body Horror, Comedy, Crossover, Demons, Horror, It comes to Westeros, Necronomicon Ex Mortis, comedy-horror, evil dead, splat-stick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:53:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8510626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendyNerd/pseuds/WendyNerd
Summary: Summary: Turns out Westeros is more destined for an idiot from Michigan than a Prince that was Promised. The court of Winterfell comes upon a a mysterious, one-handed man whom Bran believes may be the true promised one to save them all. Too bad no one knows exactly how this guy is supposed to save them and said savior (Ashley J. Williams, Homewares) is the sort of asshole who uses lines like, “Gimme some Sugar, Baby.” The King in the North is especially unhappy when said savior uses said lines on his cousin… Based on Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness and Evil Dead 2.





	1. Knuckleheads

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Posted by request.

Jon:

With corpses springing back to life, there isn’t room for beheadings anymore, though Jon often wishes it were different. Such as when Littlefinger escapes and rounds up a group of men to attack Northern towns.

Pretty much all of the men under his employ after his escape are random men who are desperate, mad, or both. They had to be, to accept payment as promises these days.

They catch and drag Littlefinger and his men back to Winterfell in chains following a mad, intense storm that seemed to flush them out of whatever hole they were hiding in. With this winter, storms are all too common. But this one was different. The sky had turned an inky purple and looked to form a spiral above the North. There was no snow, but some huge, metal object that sort of resembles a long, low, yellow and black carriage fell from the sky and landed half a mile from Winterfell’s walls. The thing weighs several tons easily and no one could identify it.

What they do manage to identify, though,is Littlefinger’s band of men when they go out scouting. They aren’t even necessarily trying to find the “Mockingbird Bandits”, as their enemies are called. Just more odd objects.

With all of the oddities and the accepted nature of the Mockingbird Bandits, Jon doesn’t pay particularly close attention to the grime-covered man with the missing hand. When the men are brought to Jon, more odd, metal objects were brought as well, but they can’t identify them. The one-handed man rants and raves, but so do many of the others. Jon is more focussed on the objects and of course, on Littlefinger.

Jon had looked down on the scoundrel from horseback. “I’m going to break your back for what you did to my cousin,” he hissed at the would-be raper when he was finally caught.

When Jon and his men lead the Mockingbirds through Winterfell’s courtyard, the crowds jeer and spit at them. Even Sansa, normally so composed and genteel, makes a point of throwing rocks at Littlefinger. One of them hits the one-handed man, who curses at her.

Sansa surprises Jon by responding to the man with a larger rock. Even Arya looks impressed.

But it is Bran’s behavior that surprised Jon even more. The lad had Jareth, his manservant, carry him right alongside Jon’s horse. His little brother points to the cursing, one-handed bandit.

“Jon, I know that man! I’ve heard his voice in my visions! I think he may be the one the gods told me of! The one to help you defeat the White Walkers!”

It is a surprising thing to hear, to say the least. Far from the most shocking thing to come from Bran, but still. Jon looks over the stranger. He is a rather tall, lean figure, poorly dressed in the extreme for the cold. He has only a brown tunic that is grievously torn, exposing half his chest. The only garment that seems somewhat serviceable is a leather belt with a sheath strapped to his back. He stutters out his curse words thanks to his chattering teeth and the skin that isn’t coated in a thick layer of blood and dirt looks to be turning blue. He raves like a lunatic, his one remaining hand seemingly frozen in a position of a fist with his middle finger extended.

While a fair amount of Bran’s visions proved reliable, many are often vague and up to interpretation. Jon cocks his head at his little brother. “Erm, are you sure it was his voice?”

“It’s not just the voice, there’s something about him. I can feel it,” Bran insists.

The King in the North glances at the bandit again. The stranger is glaring at Sansa, who calls him a foul traitor.

“Stupid bitch!” The knave replies.

Thought of visions and prophecies vanish from Jon’s mind and he dismounts at once, charging for the prisoner. A few seconds later, the criminal is on his back and Jon stands over him, glaring.

“You shall pay for those words, Swine,” the king informs the prisoner. Jon passed the point of tolerating any slights to Sansa many moons ago. He looks over at Podrick Payne. “Throw him in The Pit.”

There is only one, extremely rare form of execution the King in the North and his court employs anymore, and it is only for the most extreme criminals. It is, of course the punishment of throwing men in The Pit.

The Pit is a section of the Winterfell Oubliette that Jon ordered to be dug even deeper, with a closer contraption modeled after the Eyrie’s Moon Door. At the bottom of the thing is a collection of wights Jon captured and had brought to the castle for study.

In the last eight moons, only two men had been subjected to this fate. Jon originally intended for Littlefinger to be the only man to be torn apart by the Wights today. But now… He will make an example of this one as well.

With this announcement, the rowdy courtyard falls silent, with everyone in shock. By this point, the court knows that when The Pit is invoked, the King is serious, and in no mood to be trifled with.

“Jon, no!” Bran calls out, breaking the silence. This elicited a few gasps from some of the crowd. Jon just ignored his brother.

The swine starts looking around in a panic, clearly realizing that he’s crossed a line.

With a hearty cry, Jon looks about the yard and bellows, “TO THE PIT WITH LITTLEFINGER AND HIS ONE-HANDED MINION!!”

Especially as he is grabbed and the crowd begins heading for the Oubliette. Cheers started up of “To the Pit! To the Pit!”

When they finally get to the dark, dank chamber, the crowd packs in around the pit like eels in a barrel. The only people that have any personal space are Jon, the condemned, and the guards holding them. The prisoners were positioned right at the very edge as the pit was opened. The room fell silent again for Jon’s formal sentencing.

Before he can speak, though, Jon feels a gentle hand on his arm.

The King in the North tear his eyes away from the prisoner to his cousin’s exquisite face.

“My King,” Sansa whispers, “Is this necessary? For the one-handed man, I mean?”

“This Filth allied himself with Littlefinger, then compounded his crime by insulting you. I shall not suffer such affronts.”

 _I will not let you suffer even verbal harm anymore. Let me protect you, defend you. I will make sure everyone here knows that not even a word against you is permissible._ He’d reprimanded and punished people who insulted his cousin before, with public shamings, labor, floggings, even banishment from court. And yet, there were still some who felt they could get away with slandering her. Even after Littlefinger tried to violate her and was arrested, there were whispers that Sansa lied about what happened to cover up a “collaboration” with Baelish. Jon couldn’t take it anymore. If preserving Sansa’s honor required him to surrender a man to the wights, he would do it.

He needs her to know that. Though, admittedly, he starts to feel some trepidation about sentencing the one-handed man. So he focusses on Littlefinger, who he’s ready to execute without reservation.

So he turns and calls out

“Lord Petyr Baelish, a great evil afflicts this land. My people and indeed, all of Westeros are threatened by the scourge of the dead. Yet even so, you betray and try to violate my family and home, then wage war against me when caught.”

“I wage war for what is rightfully mine, you false king!” Littlefinger sneers.

Jon glares, “False King or not, I am not as low as you. For you have proven yourself no better than the evil that plagues this land.”  
Shouts of agreement echo from the crowd.

Encouraged, Jon smiles, “And you recruit only men who seek to insult and slander those who have suffered the most at your hand. For this, you and your most repulsive supporter shall be thrown to those at your level.”

At this point, the knave speaks. “You gotta understand, Man, I never even saw these assholes before!” He shouts, pointing at Baelish, “Littlefinger! You gotta tell them you don’t know me! We never met, tell ‘em!”

Baelish just rolls his eyes. “I do not think they’ll listen, Lad.”

Jon gestures to Pod to throw Littlefinger in. Baelish screams as he plummets. Then there’s a splash, a couple seconds of silence, and then—-

An enormous torrent of red liquid, bursting up like a reverse waterfall, shoots up from the surface of the pit. The spray hits everyone, dousing the whole room in the blood of Petyr Baelish.

The other prisoner begins raving again. “PLEASE! NO! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT ASSHOLE! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! YOU PRIMITIVE SONS OF—”

A rock, courtesy of Arya, hits him in the back of the head, knocking the words from his mouth and the rest of him off balance. He stumbles to the last inch of ground before the abyss, and with one final prod from Brienne’s squire, he begins to fly down, somersaulting as he screams.

There’s a little more silence this time. It’s only broken by some of his cries. There’s splashing. Jon calls for the elevator torch (pitch and fire in a glass jar descended on a chain, useful for observing the wights from above) to watch what happens.

To his surprise, as the wights dash towards the man, he manages to slip from their grasp almost as if he were trained. And yet, his movements are haphazard, showing no technique Jon is familiar with. It’s almost as if he’s familiar with the creatures. The prisoner scurries about the pit. Keeping out of reach. At one point, he hits ones of them and sends the creature flying.

The crowd gasps. Jon stares, transfixed.

There’s a disturbance in the crowd just as it starts to look like the prisoner is finally going to succumb. It’s Bran, on Jareth’s back, carrying the odd metal objects salvaged from the capture mission.

One an odd, metal creation that may be some sort of weapon, though it’s none Jon is familiar with. It’s is a bulky object the length of a man’s arm, with a wide, squarish, red base with what appears to be a handle. Jutting from it is an oblong protrusion of metal edged with spiky chain.

The other is brown, narrow, and long, about the same length, with what look like two tubes making up most of it.

Jareth and Bran manage to get to the edge and the lad raises the items over his head. “Promised One!” He cries out. The prisoner looks up. Bran swallows. “Take this!”

Jon’s brother throws them into the pit with all of his might. As the red and grey thing gets closer to the bottom, the prisoner leaps, holding up his stump. The weapon lands on his stump, there’s a click that’s audible even above. He catches the other item in his remaining.

A second later, there is a furious whirring noise.

Jon and the crowd watch, mouths agape, as the prisoner lunges for the wights, weapon extended. In less than a minute, after more whirring and a few blasts, the wights are in small pieces, cut up finer than a roast pheasant, their appendages sinking below the muddy pool.

The prisoner pauses to catch his breath, secures the brown tube thing in the harness on his back, then gets to the lantern, grabbing hold of the chain. “You can let me up or make me climb up, you bastards.”

Jon just stands there, stunned. It’s Bran who makes the pit operator pull the prisoner up by the lantern chain.

The man struggles out, gets to his feet, then walks up to Jon. With his grime-coated face inches from the king’s he says, “Your shoes are untied.”

Jon has no idea why he falls for this. Theon Greyjoy and Robb used to pull this trick on him all the time when they were lads. Maybe it’s shock at what he’s just seen. But he glances down.

A second later, he’s stumbling back, tearing up in pain. Rage fuels him and he straightens up, crying for his blade. Brienne brings it at once, and Jon unsheaths it, extending it towards his opponent. “For that arrogance, I shall see you dead!”

  
He’s just gotten into fighting position when there’s an ear-splitting bang and Longclaw flies violently from his hand. Jon is doubled over again, ears ringing.

When he recovers his hearing and composure, he finds that his prisoner is staring down the (rapidly diminishing) crowd. There’s smoke coming from the long tubes of the brown object. The prisoner blows it out and looks around again.

“Alright, you primitive screwheads,” he says, holding up the weapon, “See this? This… is my BOOMSTICK!” He shakes it, causing the crowd to recoil. “It’s a twelve-guage double-barreled Remmington. S-Mart’s top of the line! You can find this in the sporting goods department! That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety-five.—”

Jon grabs Longclaw off the ground. There’s a small, circular dent in the Valyrian steel.

“—-It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel,” the prisoner continues, “And a hair-trigger. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop Essmart! YOU GOT THAT?!”

He says this last bit like a legend. Jon wracks his brain, trying to remember a House called ‘Essmart’ from his lessons. Perhaps it is an eastern family?

Jon glances at Sansa, who is gaping at the prisoner with an odd look in her blue eyes. Jon instinctively moves closer, assuming a protective stance. It’s then that he notices that Arya is laughing, looking utterly delighted as the rest of the crowd cowers.

“Now…” The stranger calls out, “One of you primates even touches me…. EEEYAH!”

He whips around, and it’s only then that Jon sees that a wight— the wight of Petyr Baelish, is standing on the edge of the pit now, eyes glowing blue. But not for long. With another blast, the creature flies into the air and plummets back into the pit. People scream, and Jon quickly orders the pit to be closed.

The stranger blows smoke from the end of his weapon again and holsters it. Jon eyes the object uneasily. Just what he needs. More fire magic.

“Now,” the prisoner says, “Let’s talk about how I get back home.”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Sansa:

There are so many things she could and should be doing. Things that require her especially more than this task. She is Queen in the North in all but name. Regent, Hand, heir…

Jon’s first actions as king were to bestow countless titles, styles, and honors upon her to assert her authority. He declared her Lady of Winterfell of right of birth and conquest. Knowing that Bran might be still alive, he even declared that she was Lady by right until her death (making sure to formally reform the laws of succession for Winterfell to dispense with gender preference, and mentioning that there were no ‘fertile trueborn sons of House Stark’ left), declared her Lady of the Dreadfort and all the Bolton holdings by marital inheritance and conquest. This made her the most powerful lord in the North in her own right, thanks to the volume of land she held through these declarations. If that weren’t enough, Jon declared gender preference would not be part of the crown’s succession, naming her “Princess of Winter” and his heir. Then Regent and Hand on top of it. He even bestowed a ring with the crown’s seal to her. A very complicated substitute for declaring her just as much the North’s monarch as himself.

Sansa’s always appreciated this, of course. Not just for the power and security this entails, but also for the confidence and trust Jon shows in giving her this.

At the same time, though, along with the power, comes the immense burdens of leadership. She sometimes even wonders, when in a particularly bad mood, if one of the reasons Jon granted her so much was so he could foist much of the work of monarchy onto her. She always feels guilty for thinking this, as Jon is always consumed with protecting the North and preparing for war. They have a horrifying enemy coming, in addition to their enemies in the South. And they have few allies willing to help them protect Westeros. Of course Jon has to devote every ounce of available energy to military matters. Especially with winter here, the return of dragons, and the revelation of his parentage creating the possibility of further wars with his long-lost aunt. Who happens to command these new dragons.

Still, there are never enough hours in the day. Sansa is constantly handling matters of trade, resource dispersal, construction, diplomacy, households, charity, infrastructure, navigation, public welfare, borders, intelligence, public petitions, the royal court, and family. They are a fledgling monarchy facing enemies from all sides, including supernatural ones, with a country afflicted constantly by twelve foot snow drifts, sub-zero temperatures, uncertain borders, all in the aftermath of other wars and attacks. With many issues, Sansa’s had to educate herself as she works, never having been prepared to lead herself beyond occasionally filling in and advising a future husband.

And, being the unofficial queen, there are many activities, issues, and operations that require her personal attention and presence.

And yet, in the aftermath of the incident in the Pit, she finds herself in the library, pouring over books with Bran as she rapidly tries to sew a surcoat for their new guest.

Sansa can’t help it. She feels terribly guilty. Bran says that this man, who calls himself “Ash Williams”, is the Promised One who will deliver the key to ending the wights and White Walkers for good.

And he was nearly torn apart by wights in the Pit. Why? Because Sansa lashed out at him, provoking the insult that made Jon call for his execution. All because Sansa couldn’t act like a lady.

It mystifies her that she did such a thing. She always manages to keep her composure! She managed to remain calm when facing Ramsay on the eve of battle! And yet she was pelting rocks at prisoners!

That isn’t her. It isn’t supposed to be.

She was just so furious. That night, when Baelish… After everything he’d already done, after knowing what he’d subjected her to at Ramsay’s hands… After listening to her confront him about her discoveries regarding Jon Arryn… And her offer to let him live if he left Westeros and never contacted her again… His response was to try and bed her. And when she resisted, to try and force himself to “prove” his love.

It wasn’t just the terror. Or the way his hands made her skin crawl. How his actions seemed to send her back to those nights with Ramsay. It was how it made her wonder if this was truly all that “love”, the sort of love that she’d been promised as a girl, the type that she was told men had for women, was. If this was the only way she’d ever be seen by any men. If this was the reality of every sweet word, every kindness, every marriage.

How she once again could not feel safe in her own home, after she’d worked so hard to get it back and think of it as more than just the setting her rape again. When she’d returned to Winterfell, it took so long, took so much of herself, to eventually remember what home was supposed to feel like, and no longer see it as a perverted prison again. To start seeing her father, mother, siblings, and friends in its walls again, rather than Ramsay’s. She’d finally sone it after months and months.

Then she’d learned the true extent of Littlefinger’s crimes. She’d thought before finding that letter hidden in her mother’s chambers that Baelish couldn’t possibly be any worse. THat letter proved her wrong. Knowing the true extent of his hand in what happened to her family was almost unfathomable.

And yet, she told herself that she would show mercy. In a time when corpses spring back to life, conventional executions are not rational. She told herself she was strong and secure enough within Winterfell’s walls to confront him, let him go while securing his wealth and resources from him. That she could finally get what she, Jon, and the North needed from him at last, and cast him from her life altogether. She could promise him his life in exchange for all his gold, his secrets, his contacts, everything that had made him so powerful, and be free of him. Letting him live poor and robbed of everything he’d built, just as he had robbed her and her family of everything, was a worse fate than death for him. Surely, here, in her home, she could use this to make something good out of it. Use it to help the North rather than simply get petty revenge. That would be greater justice, the sort that Father would want. The sort that would put all of Littlefinger’s ill-gotten gains in Stark hands to be used to save the kingdom. Within the walls of WInterfell, she would do this.

And yet, when she confronted him, his response was to cry out that he did it all because he loved her mother and later, her. Crying out about how when he saw her that day at the Hand’s Tournament, he knew that they must be together. That he even gave up his love for her mother, which he had fought a duel for and carried with him for decades, upon seeing her, refocusing all his efforts on her. For her. When she’d screamed that that wasn’t love, he’d come towards her, claiming he’d prove his love, show his love. Grabbing her, trying to kiss her, twisting her arm when she slapped him, trying to carry her to her bedchamber, licking her neck and cheek, clutching at her breast and tearing at her gown.

Every moment told her that she was wrong to ever think she’d be home or safe again.

Even when Brienne and Ghost burst in, tore him away, and pinned him to the ground. Even when Ghost tore a chunk of flesh from his arm. As Jon hurried in and rushed to cover Sansa in a fur and ordered guards to throw Petyr in the dungeon. Even as Petyr’s voice, crying out about how she was his, died off as he was dragged to prison. Even though he hadn’t succeeded… The damage was done.

And then he escaped. And then word came of him gathering a group of bandits and terrorizing people with them. Sansa felt so stupid, not to mention responsible for it. If she had told Jon what she discovered instead of trying to handle it herself, Petyr would have died, and no one would have been hurt. It was her fault.

Because she was stupid. Because she thought she could handle him. Because she convinced herself that she was more than a foolish girl who wasn’t strong enough to finish her enemies.

And so Jon had to clean up her mess himself.

When they brought Petyr and his gang in, she just couldn’t stand idly by. She was tired of that. And it wasn’t just for her, but for all the people he’d hurt. For Father, Mother, Robb, Rickon, all the people his bandits attacked, all the people who suffered in the wars he started. For once, she wanted to be the one to directly make an evil man bleed.

And when her first stone struck Littlefinger, she felt so good. So much better. She felt a slice of justice. Almost like when she released the dogs on Ramsay. So she threw another.

She hadn’t meant to hit one of the other prisoners. Though when it happened, she didn’t feel too bad. The crimes of these men were sickening as well. Not just for the harm they caused, but because they were traitors. They were Northerners. Northerners whom she and Jon had freed from Bolton rule. Who must have heard word of the crimes of Petyr Baelish— Jon had riders move out the very night Petyr touched her informing every town in the North that Petyr Baelish was a traitor, a murderer, and attempted to rape Sansa. Petyr didn’t escape until days later, and wouldn’t have been able to gather these men for at least a week. So these men, knowing who Baelish was, knowing him to have killed Lord Eddard Stark, brought the North to ruin, enabled the terrifying Bolton rule, and attempting to rape their princess, agreed to serve him.

In exchange for the promise of gold.

Sansa knew people, especially these days, were desperate. But most people understood and knew how much House Stark was trying. She knew for a fact that life got significantly better for people after House Bolton fell. People knew there was assistance, courtesy of her and Jon, to those who needed it. Not to mention, the value of gold was dropping every day up North. That tended to happen when things were so dour that vendors could charge a fortune for a loaf of bread. And she and Jon had made efforts to alleviate that crisis even. On top of that, there were countless people these days, charlatans, who were fooling people into doing and giving things up for promises.

Littlefinger wasn’t even promising anything tangible, like food or clothing or shelter or protection. He asked these men to do horrible things to innocent people for a promise of gold.

And they did do horrible things. They burned houses and mills, attacked families, tortured men, women, and children, stole precious resources, blocked shipments of precious food and supplies. In a time when the North needed to band together more than ever, these men betrayed and terrorized their people for nothing. A promise from a well-known monster.

So she hadn’t minded too much when the rock hit this man instead of the intended target. And she was more than ready to tell this knave what she thought of him. She expected the insult, too. But in the heat of the moment, she hadn’t thought it through. She forgot what might happen when the man insulted her in Jon’s presence.

As much as she hated Littlefinger’s bandits, she hadn’t hated them enough to think the Pit justified for them. Littlefinger, yes. But these men? They hadn’t committed a quarter of his crimes, and didn’t present anywhere near the same threat. The Pit was for men who simply could not be allowed to live any longer for the good of the public. These men were for the Wall.

Jon agreed. He said so before he left. Being one of the few to have seen the wights first hand, he knew better than anyone how sparingly execution should be used in this time.

But then this man called Sansa a ‘stupid bitch’. And Jon heard it.

Sansa is still a bit mystified by her cousin’s extreme reaction to slights against her. He’d always been closer to Arya and Bran when they were children, and yet hearing words against them didn’t summon nearly the same level of irrational fury. The thing was, in the year or so since their reunion, Sansa began to realize that despite their prior relationship, she and her cousin were extremely alike. Jon, like her, seemed capable of swallowing and staying composed in the most infuriating and repulsive situations. They had to. Arya and even Bran allowed themselves to be provoked more easily, even with all they’d endured over the years. But she and Jon had developed this sort of protective endurance to them that made them stand or sit calmly as they received threats and taunts of the worst variety.

It was the resolve that allowed Sansa to keep her voice low and calm as she confronted the man who raped her. The resolve that made Jon throw Littlefinger in the dungeon instead of killing him right there in her solar. It was true that Jon wasn’t quite as immovable as Sansa was — understandable, given his martial nature. But he still had this prodigious composure to him.

And yet, he lost all sense of rationality in recent months when people spoke ill of her.

When Lady Lyanna Mormont, who had been the one to start the cry for him to be king, made the mistake of once again suggesting Sansa was a Lannister or Bolton instead of a Stark during court one day, Jon slammed his cup against the surface of the table, then proceeded to reduce the fierce ten-year-old to tears and groveling for forgiveness. During a small council meeting, Lord Manderly, when arguing with Sansa, suggested her virtue was tarnished. Jon responded by ordering Manderly from the room and stripping him of his position, ordering him to leave court by sundown. It was only after the Lord of White Harbor sent gifts of sapphire-studded combs and commissioned paintings depicting Sansa as THe Maiden for both Winterfell and White Harbor’s grand sept that Jon allowed him to return.

Five separate men had been publicly flogged for speaking of her in a vulgar manner. After Littlefinger was imprisoned, some people wondered if the reason Jon didn’t execute him straight away was because there was doubt of Sansa’s honesty, virtue, and loyalty. If perhaps even the king had reason to believe that the event was more a result of Sansa having a collaboration and relationship with the lord than what she claimed. Jon rounded up every person at court who said this, brought them before everyone, and informed them that they would now have the opportunity to find out for themselves if this was true, since they’d be spending the next several days in the cell next to the criminal.

Jon was as sickened with Littlefinger’s bandits as she was, for the same reasons, before he caught them. They thought very much alike. Sansa should have guessed that an insult to her might throw Jon into enough rage to cast the worst sentence onto the man. She should have thought of that before provoking the man.

And of course, it had to be the “promised one” that might save the whole North she almost got killed. Once again, her actions could have resulted in the deaths of countless innocents.

Because according to Bran, this man might deliver the key to ending the White Walkers completely. Not necessarily through fighting, with armies, either. Her brother's visions indicated that this man might lead them to some magical means to destroy the whole race without a single arrow being drawn. If so, that meant an incalculable number of lives preserved.

If Bran hadn’t managed to get that man his weapons, thousands, possibly millions of people would have had to fight and die at the hands of the White Walkers.

And after seeing what she saw in the Pit, Sansa believes her brother may be right.

Sure, the “magical, non-violent solution” part wasn’t exactly evidenced by what happened. Sansa had never seen so many body parts separated from each other so quickly. When the already-filthy Ash Williams emerged from the pit, he looked like he’d been pelted with red dye repeatedly. He looked like that poor old woman Ramsay flayed during her marriage. There were bits of flesh caught in the chain lining of his strange, bulky weapon. Sansa had thought that wights didn’t bleed. She was proven wrong on this day. Somehow, this man had made a wight bleed.

His “boomstick” actually dented Valyrian steel.

She’d not seen anything so gory or violent since her husband died.

But what he did was every bit as incredible as it was graphic. Wights were only supposed to be killed by fire or a Valyrian blade, but he managed seemingly without either. The sounds his weapons made, how he conjured explosions with the flick of his finger… The Boomstick was aptly named.

It was more than enough to confirm that he had a magical way about him. Not to mention, it seemed he came from the sky. And he was familiar with that strange metal carriage the men hauled in from the fields. Not just familiar, but unfazed by it.

So yes, they may have a promised savior now.

The only problem is, they’re not sure how he’s supposed to do this. Hence her presence in the library.

Sansa had already felt guilty for condemning this man when he was being dragged to the pit, but she felt a thousand times worse when he emerged and proved Bran right. After he blasted Petyr’s corpse back into the Pit, Sansa immediately called for him to be attended to—- for rooms to be prepared, a bath to be drawn, Maester Forres to be summoned, a meal to be cooked, the best wines brought to him, good servants to be assigned to his every need. Jon had weakly protested when Sansa directed that Lord Ash be given apartments in the family quarters, but she’d silenced him with a look.

While Lord Ash asked to be sent “home”, Sansa didn’t fuss too much with that particular request. Every other one— that he be seen to by “foxiest chicks”, serenaded by their “grooviest tunes”, “draped in the finest velvets” and addressed by a variety of honorifics including but not limited to “Lord Shagmaster Supreme”, she simply nodded and agreed. And she’s not averse to sending him home— eventually. But she has a duty to her people to figure out how he’s supposed to save their country first.

So here she is with Bran and several of the most learned scholars in the region, pouring over books.

Unfortunately, it seems Lord Ash is as ignorant of how he is supposed to save them as they are. Not that he seems particularly interested in answering that question. But Sansa is prepared to find the answer with or without him, and hold any knowledge of how to “get him home” ransom in exchange for his services.

She could be doing any number of things now, but she’s pondering these questions and sewing. She’s assigned many of her usual duties for the day to Brienne and Arya. Arya is surprisingly good at handling household manners in her own way, and Brienne, as the long-term heiress presumptive of Tarth, is trained in matters of state.

Sansa is here, trying to speed up the process of uncovering the means to Westeros’s salvation. She is no Maester, no brilliant mind, but she’d always been excellent at lessons, well-read, and good with referencing, memorizing, and recognizing things like symbols, legends, and phrases. She is even fluent in reading Valyrian (though her pronunciation is faulty). So she will put those skills to use.

The doublet is to please their would-be savior. Surely the man will be more inclined to help them if and when honored with a fine garment crafted by the hands of the Princess of Winterfell herself. She even took apart one of her mother’s old gowns, a scarlet the exact shade of the blocky part of his “chainsaw” for the fabric and was using the last of the gold thread she’d been saving for a gown to wear on the day they won the war to decorate the sleeves and front with twinkling stars and “boomsticks”.

Perhaps it’s the adrenaline rush of seeing Petyr Baelish killed and then seeing his corpse blown to the bottom of a pit, but Sansa’s hands work faster and more efficiently than ever. Or perhaps it’s all the practice she’s gotten in making doublets from sewing Jon’s things. But she's almost finished when a page enters the library.

“Princess Sansa, your presence has been requested in the Great Hall,” the youth says, eyes darting between her and the floor.

Sansa rises reluctantly. “The king has need of me?”

“Erm, yes,” he replies, “The king and… Great Lord Ash-the-Skull-Smasher, asked that you come.”

Her pulse quickens. She glances at Bran and the scholars.

“Go, Sansa, we’re fine here,” her brother urges her. Sansa nods and turns back.

“Lead me there at once.”

“Erm—”

“What?”

The youth turns scarlet. “It was… suggested that you… arrive adorned as lady of your rank.”

Sansa glances down. She changed out of her blood-soaked kirtle and furs into a forest green lamb’s wool. Fitting for a lady in such times, surely. Finer than what most had. “Does the king think I haven’t changed?”

The lad cringes. “As Lord Ash put it, it’s preferred that you show up, ‘dressed to the nines, flaunting all that you got’.”

The room seems to freeze. She hears parchment tearing and crinkling as Bran rips a page from a centuries-old tomb and rolls it into a ball.

“That foul—!” Bran begins. Sansa holds up a hand and forces a smile on her face.

“Of course, Mikken, tell the king and Lord Ash I will be with them as soon as I am presentable.”

“The king also begs that you hurry. He says he— He is almost ready to risk a war.”

“Tell the king he’s already done that enough today, and that I will do my very best to make sure he doesn’t have to repeat himself,” she replies, stomach sinking and rushing for the door.

Lily, her chief lady’s maid, is in the Great Hall, but Marna and Lisel, her other ladies, prove efficient. They slip her into an indigo silk with silver snowflakes embroidered on the bodice, fasten her mother’s opal necklace about her neck, comb her hair so it falls in soft waves over her shoulders and down her back, and pin a winter rose behind her left ear. They do the last part as she makes her way to the Hall. If Lord Ash’s request about her appearance is any indication of his behavior, he must be bring Jon to the end of his patience.

She finds the room surprisingly empty. Old Sissy, an old friend of Old Nan’s who helps Sansa run the household and runs the kitchen, stands by one of the tapestries with a kitchen boy and a tray of food. Jon sits in his usual place behind the table, Davos standing near him. The Boomstick and chainsaw are before them on the table, clearly for examination, but both men are too busy glaring at their guest.

Meanwhile, Lord Ash reclines sideways in the Lady of Winterfell’s chair, which has been moved near the window, surrounded by three pretty handmaidens, including Lily. He gazes out the window lazily, grinning as one of the girls, a young blond named Nira, feeds him grapes from a golden tray. Freya, a young beauty with tawny hair and eyes, holds a jeweled chalice and a pitcher of wine. Lily rubs his bare feet.

Sansa feels a jolt of anger on Lily’s behalf. Such a task is demeaning to any one of her people, but to her chief lady’s maid especially! She exchanges a look with Jon, whose eyes are wide with incredulity.

 _Deal with him!_ He seems to tell her silently. Sansa actually resents this.

She tries to calm herself. Savior. Promised one. Carefully, she tries to put herself in a better mindset, tries to see positives in this stranger. She finds she has to appeal to her younger, more superficial self, the one which convinced herself that Joffrey was gallant.

He is actually rather handsome, with all that grime off of him, she tells herself desperately. Though Lord Ash requested the finest clothes, he’s shockingly underdressed. No jerkin or doublet, just a tunic, albeit one of blue silk with bronze buttons at the collar. Sansa wonders for a moment where they found such a thing. The only answer she can come up with is Theon’s old wardrobe. Her father’s ward had been an absurd dandy long ago. The thought makes her heart ache a little.

Ash’s grey lamb’s wool breeches she recognizes as ones she made for Jon for his coronation. But otherwise, he isn’t dressed much. The chair is near both the window and the second fireplace. Which they never used. The servants likely had to go to extra effort to build the blaze to keep him warm.

She tries not to think of Joffrey, necessarily. Eventually, as time went on, Sansa stopped seeing Joffrey as handsome and focused more on his wormy lips, disproportionally small head, and somewhat stooped brow. Trying to align her thoughts with any impression of Joffrey eventually brought her to notice this man’s flaws too. His unbelievably enormous chin, for example. Sansa has never seen such a jaw, which is perhaps twice as long as any other she’s seen on a human being.

She tries to focus instead on his striking brown eyes, wavy dark hair, high cheekbones and straight, white teeth. But it’s hard with Jon in the room. Her king has all of these qualities as well, and is far more handsome, and so it makes Lord Ash pale in comparison. And on top of it, there’s his arrogance, his disrespect.

 _Theon was once arrogant, spoiled, pampered, and entitled,_ she reminds herself _, And he later saved my life._ She focuses on the potential of the man before her. Tries to think of Theon without making herself cry, and starts toward him.

When she draws near, he glances at her. His gaze halts for a second with interest, though he tries to hide it and looks away again in an exaggeratedly dismissive fashion. Sansa realizes with a sinking stomach that she cannot exactly blame him. He still has fresh scrapes and bruises on his face and neck from the day’s events, including one on his cheek where her rock hit him.

Sansa decides to swallow her pride a bit, and kneels by his reclining back. “I pray thee to forgive me, My Lord. I thought you one of Littlefinger’s men.”

He looks at her again. “First you want to kill me,” he says, raising and lowering his eyebrows, “Now you want to kiss me.”

There’s a pause as he directs Nira to place another grape in his mouth. With a full mouth, he says, “Blow.”

There’s clattering, but it isn’t just Jon rising in offense. The door bursts open, and several people, including Arya, Jareth, and Bran, hurry in, brandishing something.

“Your Grace! Princess Sansa! We found something!” Darren, their chief of guards says.

“I found something,” Arya insists, “In the crypts.”

Everyone but Lord Ash and the servants hurry to the main table, on which Arya drops the… thing.

It takes Sansa several seconds to realize that it’s a book. It has paper, bindings, a spine, a cover, clearly. But that takes several seconds to register thanks to the cover itself.

 _That can’t be…_ She thinks, looking at the mottled material. It didn’t look like proper leather. Or, rather, not the sort of leather her boots or saddle were made of. However, she’d seen leather like this before… on the rotting heads that were mounted on pikes on Traitor’s gate in King’s Landing.

“It’s human,” Jon says, running a hand over it.

And apparently, that wasn’t enough. Because the flesh of the cover was arranged to look like an eyeless, lipless face howling in anguish. Sansa feels ill just looking at it.

“What’s that you said?” A distinctively twanging voice calls out from the window. They turn briefly to see Lord Ash out of his chair, hurrying towards him. He pushes Darren and another guard aside. His eyes fall on the book and the color drains from his face.

“You know what this is,” Jon states, not a hint of query or uncertainty in his voice, “Tell us.”

“It’s…” Lord Ash begins hoarsely before licking his lips, “It’s a book about the de—”

“—-ABOUT YOUR FATE!!!” A shrill voice calls out before breaking into a mad cackle.

Everyone turns, and Sansa finds that somehow she’s gazing upon the most horrible thing she’s seen yet on a day where her would-be raper’s corpse stood on it’s own and almost attacked people.

Her first thought is that somehow, Old Sissy has become a wight. But that doesn’t make sense. Wights are mindless, silent, reanimated corpses. Sissy had been alive a minute ago, and even now this… thing… speaks.

“THE NECRONOMICON AND ITS CHILDREN HAVE REUNITED WITH THEIR BROTHERS OF ICE!” The monster cries, clutching the poor kitchen boy’s head and neck as he squirms and pisses himself.

She doesn’t even look like a wight. Wights looked like corpses in varying states of decay (depending on when the bodies were animated), and had glowing blue irises. But this thing’s skin is a bluish grey, rather than Sissy’s tanned old hide. It’s irises aren’t blue. It has no irises at all. The eyes are just orbs of pus-like white. And somehow, the woman’s fingernails have grown several inches, now yellowish claws.

Arya, Jon, Davos, and the guards immediately charge toward her, Jon vaulting over the table. They don’t get there in time to save the boy. The monster twists and rips his head of gleefully, dips her head back and pours some of the blood from his skull into (and onto) her open mouth.

Arya reaches her first and, for her trouble, is thrown across the hall, slamming into a wall and ripping a tapestry from the wall to fall over her. Sansa screams for them to get away, but it doesn’t save Darren from the fist through his chest.

Lord Ash moves in front of Sansa, pushing her back. The monster is just about to grab Jon when the Stranger calls out, “Hey, over here!”

There’s a click and Sansa realizes that he’s holding the boomstick. In fact, aiming it at her. Thankfully, the others have the sense to jump out of the way. The monster begins floating in mid-air.

“YOU SHALL NEVER OBTAIN THE NECRONOMICON!” She bellows in a horrifying voice, her body contorting in grotesque angles, “WE SHALL FEAST UPON YOUR SOULS!!!”

Then, suddenly, she falls to the ground in a heap and the room falls silent. Sansa looks to her sister, and is relieved to see Arya moving, pulling the tapestry off of her head. Assured her sister is alive, Sansa then registers the hag’s words and looks at the table behind her. The horrible book is gone. This is not reassuring. Lord Ash leaves her side as she looks around in a terror and sees that one of the top panes of glass of the great window is shattered.

“It’s a trick,” she hears The Promised One say. Both Jon and the Lord crouch over the monster, Lord Ash reaching out.

In an instant, the hag is flying again, black bile pouring from her mouth. She strikes Lord Ash, then flings Jon against a wall like a rag doll. Everyone screams. Sansa howls. The hag zooms towards her. Sansa knows she shall die.

But then a figure in a blue silk doublet pops up between her and the monster. It beats the monster back with the end of the Boomstick and the creature flies back. Two more guards attack it, one of them with an axe from the wall. One ends up curled up on the ground, another on his back as the monster towers over him with a red-host plate of coals from the fireplace. Sansa can actually hear the sizzling of what were once Old Sissy’s palms.

There’s an ear-splitting blast that makes Sansa cringe. Lord Ash is standing in front of her protectively once more, cocking his boom stick. The hag, her plate blasted from her hands, looks at him vengefully.

“Yo, She-Bitch,” he says, “Let’s go.”

The hag flies toward him, claws bared. He charges right towards her. A moment later, she’s spinning back. There is a flurry of swinging limbs, a couple more blasts that eventually leave Sansa doubled over and only able to hear a shrill ringing sound, as if her head was caught inside one of the giant alarm bells from the grand tower as someone pulled the ropes.

It takes a minute or so for her hearing to slowly return. Voices that sound like she’s listening to them underwater, gradually appear, rise, and clear up as people scurry around. One of the guards hacks at the crumpled body of the hag with the wall-axe. Lord Ash stands, facing away from the monster he’s slain and breathing deeply as Bran, held by Jareth, shouts things at him. Sansa looks over at Arya to find Jon sitting over her, rubbing her shoulder as she winces, but his eyes are fixed on her.

 _I’m fine,_ she mouths as her hearing returns.

“—-We found something of it— the Necronomicon— in the books! And they spoke of it in my visions! You must quest for and get it back to save our land!” Bran cries.

Sansa looks over to the maids, who are huddled under the window, whispering to each other. They are shaken, but not in hysterics. They’ve seen many horrible things. Many people in the hall, Sansa notices, are rubbing their ears and speaking at an elevated volume.

“I’ll need some things,” Lord Ash says, “From my Oldsmobile, and some of your shit. Kid, Jon, Red— you’re with me.”

Sansa’s never been called “Red” before, but she realizes who he means and hurries to him.

Arya gets to her feet and cries out indignantly. “Hey! I’m coming too!”

Lord Ash rolls his eyes. “Look, Little Girl, I don’t have time to play—”

Moments later, Sansa’s injured sister has a blade at the strange man’s neck. “I want my own Boomstick,” she tells him.

The Promised One actually smiles, and Sansa finally finds a moment where she likes him.

“Come on then!” He says, gesturing for them to follow.

“Wait a moment!” Sansa says, rushing towards the two bodies on the ground and snapping her fingers for Lily to come close. Lord Ash grumbles, but Sansa ignores him, kneeling by Darren’s corpse. She winces at the gaping hole where his heart once was.

“Have word sent to their families,” she says, mournfully, “Make sure meals are brought to them, blankets, and that the treasury instructed to keep delivering their usual wages to their families every week for the next year. Invite their closest kin to Winterfell for dinner, offer any of them positions here, and make sure arrangements are prepared for proper wakes. Lily, have my best stationary,sharpened quills, and a list of their kin waiting for me on my desk for when I return this evening.”

“…For Old Sissy as well, My Lady?” Lily asks.

“Yes. In fact— make sure Old Sissy’s family gets twice her wages for the next year. And offer to make her grandchildren my wards.” It was a small consolation, given what the guard was currently doing to Old Sissy’s corpse. These days all bodies get burned, but somehow, this seem extra disrespectful.

“Yes, My Lady.”

Sansa rises and looks expectantly at their Savior. “I’m ready.”

~_~_~_~_~

Jon:

Jon knows he should be furious at how Ash doesn’t even offer Sansa his arm as they make their way toward the armory. It is yet another offense to his cousin. But he can’t help but like the fact that it means she is on his arm instead.

He’s been suffering the insults of this lout all day, but it’s a bit easier with her here. Even as he grumbles and makes brash remarks.

Still, when they make it to the yard, Jon feels compelled to remind their guest that he is talking to the King in the North and the Vale. He hates mentioning his title, but is sick of these slights and feels compelled to do so.

Ash Williams responds with a snort. “Well helloooo Mr. Fancypants. I’ve got news for you, pal. Without me, you ain’t king of two things, Jack and shit. And Jack just left town.”

Perhaps Sansa squeezing his arm would be more comforting if she didn’t stifle a giggle at the same time. And if Arya wasn’t openly laughing.

Williams grins at Sansa. “You like that, Red?” He winks as he says this.

Sansa clears her throat. “No, not at all. My cousin is a great warrior and a great king.”

“Sure…” He rolls his eyes. “So you’re the king’s cousin? What does that make you, exactly?”

“Princess,” she replies.

Williams’ grin grows wider. “Well, you make a much more convincing princess than he makes a king, Baby.”

“She’s Princess of Winter and heir to the throne,” Jon adds through clenched teeth.

Their guest doesn’t take this as intended. “So, if this guy—” he says to Sansa, gesturing to Jon, “—bites it, the guy who marries you becomes king?”

“I—I—” Sansa looks horrified. Her grip tightens on Jon’s arm. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Hey, don’t take that the wrong way now!” The knave says, “I’m all for the Women’s Lib! Just want you to keep that in mind, and maybe there’re’ll be an upside if these schmucks can’t get me home. Not that I’m saying anything, but I wasn’t too impressed with how man-bun over here handled himself with the She-Bitch. Doesn’t bode well for him.”

Of all that, Jon understood “wrong”, “Women’s”, and an insult about his fighting. Despite his many victories, Jon suddenly feels insecure. It’s been a long, long time since anyone suggested he’s anything but a fantastic swordsman. But he had been all but useless in that fight. What if he is losing his skill and people are just flattering now because he’s king?

Still, he glares. “At least I don’t let my ‘boomstick’ do all the fighting.”

“Rather tout a boomstick than rely on any of your primitive monkey-weapons.”

And Jon finally loses it. “Well, not all of us have something like that to compensate. But not all of us have to. Most people don’t have all of their girth go to their chin.”

Everyone bursts out laughing. And this would be satisfying, if Ash weren’t one of the people laughing. He punches Jon softly on the shoulder.

“You’re alright, King-y,” he says. Then he glances at Sansa. “Just so we’re clear, Princess, the chin is in proportion.”

Before a response can be given, they get to the armory, the doors open, and at once Ash is pointing to things and going, “That one, that one, that one—”

Everyone rushes to accomodate him. Jon repeats: _Promised One. Savior. Promised One. Savior_ , in his head. He glances at Sansa. If this obnoxious lout is the savior, that means she’s saved too.

They’ve collected a mountain of things when Williams declares it’s “onto The Classic!”

Everyone stares. “The…. Classic?” Arya asks.

“The Oldsmobile! The —goddman apes— yellow— horseless— carriage! I’ve got all sorts of shit in my trunk!”

This turns out to be true. He has many things. More metal instruments. Cooking supplies. Large books with uncanny illuminations illustrated on the covers. They then deliver everything to a forge they’ve cleared out for him.

“Alright, get me some blacksmiths or some shit, and plenty of booze! And get out! I need to concentrate if I’m going to save everyone!”

“I’m staying,” Arya insists, “I want to make sure you make me my Boomstick.”

Williams rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Little Girl, just do as I say.”

No one else shares Arya’s attitude. It’s with great relief Jon leaves him, leading Sansa with him. “Gods, I thought we’d never be free of that man!” He groans to her. “I’m sorry for his coarseness.”

“I’ve endured worse.”

“Still…” He eyes her carefully, “Want to recover with me and a bottle of wine in my chambers?”

“I do,” she answers, sighing, “Unfortunately, I have messages of condolence to write. Unless… You weren’t horribly injured by that hag, were you?”

Jon rubs his shoulder. He’s tempted to tell her that he’s in agony to get her to come, but his conscience forces the truth from him. He’s warmed by her compassion for others. She smiles.

“I’m glad. I was so afraid.”

“Arya got it worse, and she’s fine.”

“A miracle, truly.”

“Jon, I’d actually like to speak with you in the library,” Bran tells him, “We uncovered things that may be about the Necronomicon. You should see them.”

Jon nods and adjourns with his brother. Jareth places the lad at a table piled high with books and leave them. Jon’s little brother yanks one of the tomes from the middle of the stack and leafs through it, coming to a page with an illuminated chapter head reading “Necronomicon Ex Mortis”.

“While we were researching, we took notes of anything that might be relevant to what we’re facing,” his brother explains, “We saw this and didn’t know exactly what we found but it seemed relevant.” Bran runs his finger down a column, then reads a line, “The tome is bound in human flesh and inked in human blood…”

“That sounds familiar.” Jon curses. He wishes he’d had more time to examine it before it flew away. Bran then turns the page, revealing an exact image of the book.

“That’s not the only time it’s disappeared,” Bran tells him, turning another page to show an illustration of diminutive figures sitting around a stump on which an open book lay.“The legend says that the Children of the Forest discovered it one day, and believed it to be a blessing from another world. They learned some of the spells, then recreated them for their own purposes, birthing the White Walkers. The book also apparently had means to control the evil forces, but before they could use them, the sky turned black and swallowed the book, taking it back to its home.”

“Was there any mention of this savior?” Jon asks.

“No, but the coincidences are too great. They say that as the book was swallowed up, it cried out to stay with its ‘icy children’. Apparently it likes to create as many types of evil in as many places as possible. That one world isn’t enough for it.” He points to a line that says those exact words.

Jon swallows “You think the storm was another portal, and Lord Ash and the book are from the same world?”

Bran nods.

Jon steps back, trying to think. “Williams said he comes from the future—”

“A future, maybe, but I don’t think it’s ours. I think it may be a different world altogether. A different reality.”

“Why?”

“The book can fly, can move to different places on its own. If it comes from the future there, and was here when the White Walkers were created, it would have had to be somewhere in this world in all the time in between. And if it wants to be with its icy children so badly, then why didn’t it simply return to them? And if it’s existed all this time in one reality and survived… I honestly doubt there’d be one human left alive in Williams’ time.”

It makes sense. Jon begins to feel a creeping dread. “Do you think its already with the White Walkers, then?”

Bran shakes his head. “That’s the good news. Apparently the book is a living thing on its own. And like other living things, it needs new energy to consume regularly. And it can only do it by resting in very specific sites of great evil to feed on the energy there. Evil energy. Death energy. And it needs that energy frequently, especially if it has had to travel to a new world. Considering how it was in the crypts long enough door Arya to find it and allowed her to bring it to us, I believe that. I think it was likely feeding on the energy of the dead before continuing its journey. So the book will have to stop in places to feed itself before it reaches the White Walkers. Luckily, the book had to spend some energy to posses Old Sissy, so it likely will have to stop and feed again very soon.”

Jon takes a deep breath. “That’s… That’s good, I suppose. But—-”

Bran cringes. “—But the book is heading towards the White Walkers, and they’re heading here. We don’t have much time. Williams will have get to the book in one of its resting places in time, and destroy this evil before it reaches the Night’s King. We have to find out where it will be and how he’s supposed to use the book.”

Jon nods. “Are… Are you sure it has to be him?

His brother winces, then reaches for another text, opening it. He finds the page almost immediately. The art was a bit crude, but the intended image was too distinctive to be mistaken. A male figure standing atop “The Classic”, raising a long, Boomstick-shaped object with his left —-and only—- hand and a “Chainsaw” shaped object protruding from his right arm.

Jon utters every foul word in his vocabulary. And he repeats them for the next ten minutes at increasing volume.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Sansa:

Sansa is nothing but weary. She almost wishes she’d agreed to that drink with Jon. Instead, she drinks alone as she finishes the letters, and then the doublet.

She wants to bring Lord Ash his gift more than she wants to deliver these letters, but only slightly. Even if Lord Ash is their savior, he doesn’t deserve this shirt. It’s one of the finest things she’s ever made, as fine as the clothes she made Jon for his coronation. It’s with a jolt she realizes that the man is wearing Jon’s coronation breeches in that forge now, probably ruining them with soot and sweat.

Jon earned his fine clothes. Sansa put love in every stitch. But every bit of this garment is crafter with bitterness. Too bad that one couldn’t tell looking at it. She feels almost like she’s betraying Jon somehow, making this thing for their loutish guest.

What he said on their way to the armory… Sansa was so disgusted. And horrified. To even speculate about the king’s death….

Of all the people to be their savior, why does it have to be this man?

Sansa knows it’s him, too. She found an illustration of the “savior” with Lord Ash’s boomstick, chainsaw, and “Classic”. She just didn’t resent it as much at the time.

She’ll go to Jon’s apartments with some hot, spiced wine after she’s done with the “Savior”. Yes. And maybe she’ll massage Jon’s shoulders and remind him of how wrong Lord Ash is. How brave and gentle and strong he is. How great a king he is. How she cares for him…

Well, maybe not how exactly she cares for him. But that she cares for him very much. There’s not enough wine in the world to get her to admit how she cares for him.

But there is enough wine in the world to ready her to face the Lout with the Boomstick.

As she walks, Sansa looks over the doublet again. She can at the very least take pride in her work. It is very fine. As fine as its intended owner is undeserving. She even embroidered his initials on the cuffs. It occurs to her that gold on red is for Lannisters. But then, he has the ego of a Lannister, so it works. The thought cheers her all the way to the forge.

She peeks in to find him fiddling with a metal hand he’s attached to his stump. It is an iron thing, oddly designed, but more articulated-looking than what she remembers of Jaime Lannister’s golden hand. She suspects it is far more useful.

He looks up at her. “What’s the matter, were you raised in a barn? Shut the door.”

Embarrassed, she enters, closing the door silently behind her and going to his. _Just swallow it, you’ve suffered worse,_ she tells herself, _You can make him regret his rudeness after he’s saved everyone_.

He mutters something about ‘primitives’ under his breath as she walks over.

“My Brother is a greenseer. And he says you’re the Promised One. that you will journey for The Book to help us,” she states, not sure what she expects of his reaction.

He pauses and cringes. “The only reason I’m going to get the book is to get home.”

She sighs and picks up a chisel. “Shall you be leaving in the morning then?”

He snatches it from her hand. “Don’t touch that, please!”

He’s like a child. She snaps a little. “This is my castle, you know. I shall touch what I like! Everything here is technically mine!”

He pauses then, sits back, and smirks at her. “I heard. About that…”

“…Yes?” She asks, annoyed.

“I asked around. People tell me that the last king was your older brother, and before that, your father ruled the North. That the schmuck now is your aunt’s kid.”

Sansa assumes ‘schmuck’ is not something anyone in his world would want to be called, but she ignores this. “Yes, so?”

“Well then, doesn’t that mean you should be ruling this joint, not him?”

She stiffens. Sansa hates this subjects for a number of conflicting reasons. “I just told you, I do.”

“I don’t mean just the castle. I mean the whole country! Shouldn’t it be ‘Queen Sansa’, not ‘King Jon’? Your sister even says you’re the one that brought the army that got this place back. So what’s the deal, then?”

“Jon led an army as well!”

“I heard. I also heard you had to save his ass. So what is it? No women’s lib around here? Your sister seems pretty out there. She’s a real pistol. You’re a bit of one too.”

Sansa seizes on a lead to change the subject. “Where is Arya? I thought she wasn’t going to leave you alone until you made her a Boomstick. Or did you finish it already?”

He snorts and grabs his tool again. “I made the kid go to bed. That deadite did a number on her. She’s a pistol, but I didn’t need her getting sick on my conscience.”

This actually makes Sansa smile. “Thank you. Arya often overtaxes herself.”

“I’ll say!” Lord Ash grunts. “As if I’d make her a Boomstick anyways! She’d probably blow her head off! Your primitive intellects cannot possibly comprehend alloys and compositions and… things of that nature.”

And like that, her warm feelings are gone. She wants to rip that metal hand off and beat him with it. How dare he? He knew nothing of them, of what they’d survived. Comprehension indeed! He had a book open in front of him with a diagram. Anyone could follow instructions from a book. Sansa was willing to bet she or Arya could probably build the same things with that book. She bets that “Duke Genius Guru” (another one of his made up honorifics) didn’t know a satin-stitch from a seam ripper, though.

Pointedly, she thrusts the doublet out. “I made this for you,” she says stiffly, “I want you to know that all my hopes and prayers go with you. Will you be leaving at sunrise?”

He seizes it and looks it over, then casts it aside. “Good, I can use a horse-blanket.”

And with that, she slaps him as hard as she can. Then she spins around and marches out.

As she gets further away, she begins to panic. What if she’s gone too far? What if her actions mean he won’t quest for the book? What if she’s ruined everything?!

Before she can turn around to apologize, he’s grabbed her arm. He pulls her to him. Their eyes meet, blue on brown.

She knows what he wants. What he intends. She looks out onto the yard. There are plenty of people out working, despite the hour. They all work around the clock, all to make sure they’re ready for the enemy when they come. All knowing that even all this won’t necessarily save them. All afraid, but not giving up. Working their fingers to the bone. Good people. Hard-working people. People who deserve better than to fall to the white Walkers. Needing each other to do whatever they can to save the North. Needing her to do the same.

He grabs her chin and jerks her head so she faces him. As he runs a hand through her hair, her stomach sinks. She remembers Septa Mordane’s advice. The advice she tried to use that night with Tyrion, and again with Ramsay. All men are beautiful, you just had to find their beauty.

Ash Williams is far from ugly. And he is their savior. And if he succeeds, if he does what they need him to do, if he does more with the Book than get himself home, then all these people won’t have to work themselves to exhaustion. They can face the winter without worrying about the war. They can buckle down and stay safe and warm within the castle’s walls instead of marching to the Wall.

“Gimme some Sugar, Baby,” he says, not moving towards her, waiting, eyes intent. There’s a twinkle in them. It’s actually rather nice. He’s waiting. He’s not Ramsay or Petyr. And no one has forced her here. And if he knew what she’s suffered, he wouldn’t be doing this. Somehow, she knows this.

He said that she might be an upside if they couldn’t get him home. It’s better if he’s sure of that. _Give him something to come back to, to save._ Sansa clutches his shoulder and kisses him, making the first move. Because he’s waited.

She lets him push her back until she’s against the wall of the arch. His metal hand is hard, but surprisingly careful as it rests on her hip. His left hand his gentle. His mouth is surprisingly inviting. Sansa still thinks him a nasty lout, but for some reason her disdain fuels her as she pulls at his hair and wrestles her tongue against his. There is heat between them, and her hips grind against his hardness on their own.

Then, all of a sudden, he’s gone. The heat is replaced with chilly emptiness. There’s shouting. Sansa blinks. Ash and another man wrestle on the ground. As they spin around, the torchlight catches his attacker and she sees that it’s Jon.

She’s horrified. _NO. Oh gods, no_. Of all the people to see this, why did it have to be Jon?

She’s never felt so ashamed. She cries out and hurries to them, pulling at Jon’s collar. “Stop it! Stop it now!”

It’s only when she begins calling for guards that the two men break apart.

“What’s the deal, Man?” Ash demands.

“You dare…” Jon chokes out the words. “You dare take advantage of my Sansa!”

_‘My’ Sansa?_

Ash starts to get to his feet. “Hey, Man, she’s a big girl, she can make her own decisions,” he says, wrapping his arm about her waist. “I get you’re all old school but seriously, you’re getting pretty creepy with the protectiveness. I mean, shit, it’s not like I was trying to shuck your corn or something. I mean, for Christ’s sake, she’s your—”

“—-She’s not my sister!” Jon shouts as he rises. “She isn’t! I at least get that! There’s nothing wrong with what I feel!”

Ash halts, looking back and forth between them. “Wait, I thought you were cousins?”

“We are!” They both say at once, defensively.

Lord Ash’s eyes widen. He looks a bit disgusted. “Goddamn backwoods hillbilly primitives— For fuck’s sake, really?! And I thought my family was fucked up!”

“How dare you?!” Sansa shrieks, having had enough. “There is nothing wrong with our family!”

“Oh, making it with your cousin is all hunky dory, then?”

“Making what with my cousin is what?” She asks, bewildered. “Speak the common tongue!”

“You think it’s fine to—” He makes a face like he’s gagging. “—Sleep with your cousin?!”

“Of course it is.” Once again, she and Jon speak in unison, puzzled. “Our grandparents were cousins.”

“That’s sick!”

“Of course it isn’t! It’s not as if we’re siblings, like my father’s parents!” Jon shouts.

Somehow, Lord Ash manages to look even more grossed out. “What the Hell is wrong with this world? Are you all that determined to have kids with six fingers? God damn…” He looks at Sansa. “Dodged a bullet there. With all due respect, lady, you might have been a ten. But you let your cousin in there and you’re now a seven,” he pauses, “Well, okay, an eight, but still, I’m the savior! I’m not into a chick who plays that!”

Sansa steps back. “Wait, what do you mean? You think Jon and I—?”

At this, his face brightens. “Oh, you haven’t?”

“No! Why would you think such a thing?” She asks, panicked. No way in any of the Seven Hells this obnoxious fool could have guessed.

“You’re kidding, right?” Lord Ash says, “King-y over here is obviously desperate for a piece of that!”

“A piece of what?”

The savior rolls his eyes. “Princess Pie.”

“I do not! How dare you—?!”

“Ah, blow it out your ass!” He comes close to her and wraps his arm around her waist again, smiling. “Come on, Baby, how about we ditch creepy cousin over here and pick up where we left off? I’ll show you my other Boomstick.”

Her mind is fixed on Jon, though. And now, Ash’s touch only feels alien. She pulls away and looks at Jon. “Is he right?” She asks. Surely this idiot can’t be right about anything, especially something like this.

Jon reddens and looks at his feet. “It’s not just lust, Sansa, I swear.”

The world seems to be upside down. Sansa sways a little. Then she runs to him, throwing her arms around Jon’s neck with glee. “I thought myself hopeless.”

Her king gapes. “R-really?”

She giggles and nods.

“REALLY?!” This time, it’s Lord Ash. “Your cousin?!”

Sansa glances at him dismissively and rolls her eyes. “Blow.”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Jon:

Jon truly cannot believe how things have gotten so good, so quickly. It’s almost like winter is over already.

He glances out his bedchamber window. Snow falls over the Northern morning. _Well, it isn’t,_ he thinks, smiling and reaching over, _But I have someone to keep me warm._

Ash Williams is an obnoxious git, but Jon can’t help but appreciate the man. Despite his comments the morning after their altercation about ‘incest’ and ‘cousin fucking’, he’d gone on his journey, promising to bring the book back. Bran had figured out where the book rested. When they got within a league of the tower of the Rat King, the horses got spooked and refused to go further, and all the trees began to resemble giant claws. All of them could feel it.

To Ash’s credit, he did proceed. Sure, he managed to be a tit about it, refusing to repeat the magic words Bran gave him more than once, but he went.

Jon scored a point by calling out to him as he retreated. “Oh, Williams!”

The git turned. “What?”

“You’re wrong. I haven’t bedded her yet!” Jon said. He waited a bit, then added, “But I will by the time you get back!”

The man cursed and turned away, leaving.

Despite his personality, Jon feels oddly confident about his mission. And he did manage to make Arya her Boomstick before leaving, which was nice.

The White Walker threat might be ended before it even began, and the woman of his dreams now lies beside him, nude beneath the furs. Jon strokes her side affectionately as her chest rises and falls. She’s peaceful and there’s a small smile on her face. He doesn’t get to see that often.

Eventually, she stirs, eyes fluttering open. Her eyes are blue in all the right ways. Jon delights in the fact that they may be the only blue eyes he’ll have to face, at least until their children are born.

“Good morning,” he says, “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

She shakes her head. “Even if you had,” she says drowsily, “I was dreaming of you anyways.”

He grins, unable to believe his life at this moment. “And what was I doing in this dream?”

“Mmmmm… Kissing me everywhere, telling me you love me, doing that thing with your mouth…”

He climbs over her and seizes her mouth with his. When they break apart, he smiles, “Let’s continue that dream, shall we?”

After spilling his seed within her, Jon lies back and lets Sansa curl around him. She strokes his chest and he smiles. At long, long last.

During his time in the Watch used to think of those pampered, spoiled lords, in bed with their wives and enjoying the protection the Watch gave them. Resenting the Hell out of them, with their warm beds and full stomachs, getting everything that Brothers had to sacrificed to no reward. He would try to console himself that at least he had his honor and pride in being a Watcher on the Wall. But that was little comfort on cold nights.

As years went on, the burden to protect and save every just grew and grew until he was literally supposed to be a god. Even after he left the Watch, everything was supposed to fall on him. He was the Prince That Was Promised, the King in the North, the White Wolf. He had to save everyone. Lead everyone. And even out of his blacks and sitting on a throne, he had to accept that he’d never get to have the woman he wanted, that though he would likely eventually have a wife, that would end up being as much of a duty as The Wall. His whole life would be duty, be saving everyone, and never getting to follow his heart.

And all of a sudden, after so many years of fighting, of preparing to save everyone, this idiot with one hand shows up.

And all of a sudden, another man was out saving the world, and Jon is in bed with his heart’s desire.

“It doesn’t seem real,” he says aloud.

“Hmmm?”

Jon strokes her hair and looks up at the canopy over his bed. “It just seems too good to be true. I’m supposed to be the poor bastard who sacrifices everything to save everyone. With all of the responsibility and none of the benefits. I was made for suffering and sacrifice and struggle. But now I’m here, naked and reeking of you, in this warm bed, while some other poor bastard is saddled with the fate of the world.” He looks into her eyes and asks, half-joking, “How long until this all comes crashing down around us, do you think?”

Sansa shakes her head. “Don’t say that. We’ve struggled, sacrificed, and suffered enough. You especially. You’ve already died once. We’re owed some happiness and ease.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he says, reassured.

Almost as if on cue, there’s a loud blast sound from outside.

“Seven Hells!” He groans. Of fucking course. He gets out of bed and rushes to the window, opening it and facing the gust of icy air. He looks down onto the yard. “WHAT IN SEVEN HELLS IS HAPPENING?”

“Sorry, Brother!” Arya shouts from a far end of the yard near the archery range. One of the targets it blasted to smithereens. She has a Boomstick on her shoulder. “I was just practicing!”

Jon nearly faints with relief. Instead, he laughs. “Well, be bloody careful!”

He closes the window and returns to bed.

“What was it, My Love?” She asks, sitting up and running her fingers through her hair.

“Arya experimenting with her new Boomstick,” Jon replies, “It seems to work.”

“Speaking of Boomsticks…” Sansa says mischievously, “Yours reloaded yet?”

He grins. “You’re insatiable!”

“Well, when you’ve been eating Bowls of Brown for so long, you try to get as much honey as you can when you get the chance,” she replies, “Come now, make me forget the past.”

At first, when Jon hears the rattling, and even the first crash, he just thinks it’s the forces of their passion making the bed shake. It’s only after he falls head first into her bosom and is lying perfectly still that he realizes there are still strange shaking and bumping sounds.

“J-Jon?” Sansa asks nervously. “L-Longclaw—”

Jon rises and looks over at the rack where he hangs his weapons. All of the shake on their own, Longclaw most violently. He stares, mouth agape. Then, just in time, he grabs Sansa and they both flip off the bed in time to avoid the blade as it plunges itself into the mattress where they’d just made love.

There are giggling sounds coming from the walls. More things rattle. Candlesticks, his wardrobe, inkwells. They all laugh at them. One of the candlesticks falls from his side table, and the rug catches on fire. Jon panics. Thankfully, Sansa thinks quickly and overturns his chamberpot over the flames, putting it out. More laughter. More ear-splitting laughter.

They scramble to their feet and watch in horror as Sansa’s red gown floats into the air and starts moving, almost as if it was being worn by an invisible figure. Feminine laughter comes from it, the invisible figure begins shaking its hips and blowing kisses.

A second later, he’s forced onto the bed and being strangled by the sleeves. Sansa screams and tears the gown to bits.

Jon gasps for breath, but hurries to grab Longclaw. The laughter dies away and everything stills.

“Jon, what’s happening?”

His stomach sinks. “I don’t know, but we must find Bran. I think something may have gone wrong on Ash’s mission.”

That’s when the morning sun disappears and it replaced by inky, rumbling clouds.

“…Or, rather, I know something has gone wrong.”

He hurries to throw on his tunic.

“Jon, I have nothing to wear now—”

He grabs a tunic, leggings, and his cloak from his wardrobe and tosses them to her. He also gives her one of his daggers. “ You’ll need this. Now Hurry.”

She does, and they enter the halls to hear more cries. “Stay close, Sansa.”

They venture down the halls. Eventually, a servant comes the other way, crying. “Your Grace!” The girl sobs, her head, neck, and shoulders soaked. “It’s terrible! Jemmy tried to drown me! And his eyes…. His eyes!”

“Oh, Gods.” Sansa sobs. “Nira, get to the godswood, tell everyone you meet to go there too, alright? Do you know where Bran is?”

“The prince should be in his chambers!”

“Thank you, now go!”

They hurry to Bran’s rooms to find their brother already at his desk, furiously tearing through a book. “It’s all gone wrong, but how?” He babbles. “It was so simple!”

“What do you mean?” Jon inquires to his brother.

“All he had to do was grab the book and say the words!”

“Oh, gods, there were words involved?!” Sansa cries. “The man can barely speak the common tongue! Every other word is gibberish!”

“Bran, what’s the worst we can expect?”


	2. Go Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone recovers from a bad dream as Ash embarks on his mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like the new chapter!

 

Ash:

All the way to that stupid castle-tower thing attached to that stupid wall, he scowls and grumbles. What kind of jerk brags about banging his cousin? A primitive ape-jerk, that’s what kind.

For the first time in his life, Ash thanks his mom for making him go to riding camp when he was eight. Sure, his ass officially feels like he’s forgotten the safe word, but at least he’s staying upright.

Or, at least, he does until he’s about three hundred yards out from that rundown old castle. His horse gets a fright then, and throws him. Ash finds himself landing in the mud. History repeating itself. But at least this time it doesn’t seem like he’ll be possessed by anything.

Instead, he’ll be grabbed by a dozen skeleton hands reaching up from beneath the ground to tear at him. Ash scrambles to beat them off and get to his feet. He sprints for the tower, already desperate to end this. Damn it, why didn’t he tell those screwheads he needed more time to prepare? Two nights ago, he was fighting off the forces of Hell, getting terrorized by his own damn hand. He spent the next night, at the very least, being treated like a God in the middle of a castle. And instead of giving himself a break to savor it a bit, oh no, he had to spend the whole night in a smithy, tinkering and trying to set out as quickly as possible.

And for what? What was one more day in whatever time this is? He could have used some extra time to get patched up. Give himself a rest. Maybe read up a little more on this or that. Sure, he couldn’t let himself get too comfortable, but comfortable enough to get some proper sleep seemed reasonable.

Hasn’t he spent enough time being attacked by monsters? Damn, two nights ago, he’d been forced to decapitate his girlfriend with a shovel. Surely that earned him a little R&R.

He’d probably be better equipped to handle this, too. His eyes itch and ache. His back feels like Hell. He easily has at least one cracked rib. The sort of wallop those Deadites pack don’t exactly leave you peachy-keen.

Why does it have to be him doing this alone, anyways? That Bran kid said himself that he’s been to the rat king’s tower before. King Fancy Pants has fought some of these things. He made the younger sister a boom stick. And they had plenty of men ready to fight. A fair amount of those willing cats seemed all too ready to bash some evil skulls in.

Sure, the bare bones of the mission aren’t hard --- get the book, says some words, ride back. But the part about fighting through an army of demons to get there… well, he could maybe use some help with that.

After being knocked out almost four times by a mean, bony right hook, Ash is done playing nice. He grabs the chord and yanks it. His old friend purrs like a kitten as Ash slashes his way through a couple dozen skeletal demons until finally, at long last, he limps to the front door of the tower.

He finds an unexpectedly homey, cottage set up, complete with a roaring fire, boiling kettle, and even a washbasin and mirror. It kind of reminded him of the cabin as he imagined it when he drove up there with Linda. Linda… His heart aches at the thought of her.

Linda never treated him like an idiot. She never cared that he worked at S-Mart, or was barely making it through college. Or that he had a chin the size of Detroit. She even liked The Classic.

All his life, people treated him like a useless moron. Ash used to think it was his natural unibrow. But even after he got it waxed, people treated him like a fool. Linda didn’t, though. She really thought he was something. She thought he was funny. And charming. And smart.

He’d just wanted to take her up to a cozy place like this, up in the mountains, and show her a good time. Even now he can imagine her twirling around in her State T-shirt and panties as he played piano. Of her gasping as he clasped that necklace he’d gotten her around her neck.

But quick as those image come, so do the ones of her severed head in a metal vice, of her possessed body doing that dance out in the woods.

Right now, he misses her more than his hand.

Ash looks around the cozy room and knows better. This room is a trick, just like the pleading from Linda’s possessed form, just like the cellar. The only thing the Deadites liked more than killing was fucking with him.

Treading carefully, he moves toward the mirror mounted on the far wall. He’s got a few cuts and bruises. And, barring an alternate version of himself popping out of the glass like last time, it couldn’t hurt to check them out. He couldn’t take too many chances in this primitive world with its primitive medicine.

Ash watches his reflection closely. So far, so good. Same wavy, dark hair with streaks of white at the ears-- by-products of the shocks he endured at the cabin. Same tentative, dark eyes. Same huge chin with an arrow-shaped scar on the left side. He has the same marks and scrapes on his right cheek, between his eyebrows, over his lips. There’s a new, nasty scrape on his neck.

He takes a deep breath and speaks. “Hey, Evil, why don’t you eat my butt?”

Nothing out of the ordinary. As close to satisfied as he’ll ever be, he leans forward to check the scrape more carefully. It’s definitely fresh, but not too deep---

There’s a skittering sound and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He has his rifle drawn and pointed in the direction of the noise. Nothing. Too much nothing.

“Come out, you sneaking shits,” he calls out, “I’m _inches_ away from your book. Don’t you want to come out and stop me? Or are you going to let the Promised One win that easy?”

There’s another skittering sound, and this time, he shoots, making a dent in the stone wall. Still nothing.

Slowly, he turns back to the mirror, intent on sneaking a look at whatever is there through the reflection. But he’s distracted by what look like stiff, white fibers protruding from above his upper lip.

“What the---?” When he opens his mouth, his front teeth grow several inches. His nose shrinks and turns pink. His ear turn the same color and climb to the top of his head. Panicked, Ash brings his remaining hand to his mouth. It feels the same. But his reflection continues to change. His eyes become completely black. Unable to take anymore, he screams and smashes the mirror to pieces.

There’re squeaks and giggles as Ash stumbles towards a door that looks like it make lead to a hall. He tries to ignore it. Enough dawdling. Time to get that book. Mind set, he ignores how the chorus of giggles and squeaks rise in volume.

Just as he is about to be in arm’s reach of the door, he trips on something and go flying, slamming his face against the door. Before he knows it, something--- no, some _things_ \--- are yanking him back by the hair. He reaches to grab at them when something jumps down from above and lands right on his eye.

Ash cries out, clutching his left eye. The pain is so acute he almost doesn’t feel the hooks digging into his sides. With his good eye, he looks around and sees a tiny figure perched on a hanging pot, gesturing and calling out.

“HEAVE! HO!” The tiny figure cries in a squeaky voice. No…. It can’t be…

The tiny figure was a miniature version of him, only it had a long, pink tail. Like a rat’s.

“What the Hell are you---”

But he’s yanked onto his back. Ash looks around. He is surrounded and being tied by dozens of tiny figures that all look like rat-versions of him. Some have whiskers and pink noses, some have black eyes, some have tails. But they all have big chins, blue shirts, and teeny Montgomery Ward work pants. And they are all laughing and jeering at him. Some were kicking him. Others were tying him up. Ash struggles, but the little bastards were strong. One jumps right onto his balls, bringing tears to his eyes. He can barely breathe.

A wooden chair suddenly appears by his head. The rat-Ashes start climbing onto his face. The only good part about this is it frees up the pressure on his limbs, and he begins to loosen the ties.

But not before one of them manages to squeeze his nostrils shut. A little rat-Ash poses on the edge of the chair above his head.

“GERONIMOOOOOO!” It cries before diving straight for his mouth. Ash tries to keep his lips closed, but to no avail. He needs oxygen.

The rat bastard descends into his mouth and down his throat.

“HOORAY!” The other rat bastards cry before disappearing in puffs of smoke.

Except for the one inside him, which continues to shimmy down his esophagus.

“Oh, HELL NO!” He isn’t going to let this thing win. He scrambles to his feet and spots the boiling kettle. “Hasn’t your mama ever taught you not to leave the STOVE ON?!”

Manic, he stumbles for the stove, grabs the kettle, and tips his head back, laughing. “DOWN THE HATCH!!!!”

The boiling water is excruciating as it runs down his mouth and throat. He’ll probably never taste anything again. But it’s worth it, imagining that little shit being boiled alive. Sure enough, the squirming within him stops.

Ash drops the kettle and doubles over in laughter. He’s lost his mind, not that he cares. Little fucker didn’t get him!

He sits for a second to relax, scratching an itch on hi right shoulder. But the itch doesn’t go away. His laughter does, though. The itch grows. His stomach turns. He yanks the sleeve of his shirt aside.

To his horror, his eyes fall upon another eye, peeking out of the top of his shoulder. Big, brown, and blinking.

Ash screams and claws at it, but to no avail. Quickly, another eye pops up, and a nose, and mouth, laughing at him.

Before he knows it, he has two heads, and a third shoulder. Then a third pectoral. A twin is growing out of him.

Screaming, Ash finds himself trying to crab-walk away, but no dice. The thing continues to laugh and grow until at last, it splits away.

There are two, full Ashes now. And the new one stands over him and kicks him in the stomach.

Ash curls up, but struggles to his feet. Gaping at the figure, he asks, “Who--- Who are you?!”

It’s like the mirror back in the cabin, but way worse.

“I’m _Bad Ash_ ,” his doppelganger says in an exaggerated version of his voice, “And you’re _Good Ash._ ”

The doppelganger follows this answer with a slap right to Ash’s face. He’s quick to recover, just in time for---

“You’re a _goody little two shoes---”_ Punch to the nose. “ _Goody little two shoes!”_ Knee to the groin. “ _Goody little two shoes!”_ Stomp to the instep.

Enough. This time, when Ash rises, it’s with the boomstick. The end of the rifle presses to his doppelganger’s nose. He pulls the trigger and the doppelganger is blasted black, knocking the hall door open and landing, half-faceless, on its back.

“Good. Bad. I’m the one with the gun.”

Ash blows the smoke from the ends of the barrel, re-sheathes the boomstick, and heads for the stairs. The steps seem to go on forever, but at last, he reaches the top.

He’s in a chamber, and ahead of him are three pedestals with light shining down on them. And on each stone podium is a Necronomicon.

Somehow, this manages to be even crueler than the Bad Ash. Laughter surrounds him, thundering from every wall.

Ash stumbles closer, outraged. “ _Three books?! No one said anything about three books!”_

Desperate, he leans over, hoping to make out something---anything-- that might indicate which is the right one. But they’re identical.

Ready to throw up, Ash plays a game of “Eenie Meenie” and lands on the center one. Taking a deep breath, he grabs it.

…  And bursts into flame.

Screaming, he just manages to remember the lessons from school. Stop, drop, roll!

To his amazement, this actually saves him. His clothes are a bit singed, but otherwise he’s fine. Getting to his feet again, he pauses to glare around the chamber at the invisible sources of giggling. Then he grabs the left one--- and findings himself spinning in midair and swung around the room by an invisible force. This, he isn’t sure how to stop. The spinning continues, and so do the cruel voices, mocking him. It’s only when he sprays the chamber with Linda-Blair-esque vomit that the torment ends.

This time, he is not so easy to get his bearings. Struggling to maintain balance, he grasps at the third and final book.

The laughter stops, and Ash knows he has the right one.

Finally!

Now all he needed to do was say the----

Shit.

“K-Klaatu---! Berada---!

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

 

Jon:

Bran opens his mouth, but the wrong words come out. “Wake, My Love. We’ll have to leave bed soon enough, and I want some time with you all to myself first.”

His voice sounded as off as his words. And Jon feels a tickling sensation move down his cheek.

His eyes flutter open to greet large blue ones staring right back. Sansa hovers over him, cupping his face. But her expression is not quite a serene as one would expect. There’s a tremor behind her eyes, a weakness to her smile.

Nevertheless, Jon smiles back. “So that wasn’t just a dream.”

She laughs softly. “No, I suppose not. Here we are.”

“Here we are,” he agrees, running fingers through her hair, “There’s nowhere I’d rather be, no person I’d rather be with.”

“Mmmm.” She leans down and rests her head against his chest. “It seems like a dream, though. Us together, Petyr gone, the Promised One due to return any moment with our salvation. But I suppose we are due some good fortune.”

Jon winces. “’The Promised One’. Heh. More like 'the idiot.'”

“Don’t say that,” she replies.

“Why not? The man is a fool and a lout. Surely you can see that.”

“Bran says he’s to save us.”

Jon feels a spike of jealousy. “Don’t tell me you like the man.”

Sansa raises her head. “I don’t have to like him. I just want to believe that he can spare us the war ahead.” She shudders. “I had the most horrible dream that he failed…”

“So did I,” Jon admits, “Granted, I’d rather be spared those horrors.”

“Precisely.” Sansa presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “So let’s put some faith in him. And just in case, well, it’s a good thing Arya has her own boomstick now.”

As if on cue, a loud blast sounds from outside. Jon snorts. “And she’s wasting no time in practicing.”

Sansa’s blue eyes flicker. “How do you know she’s practicing?”

“Because I--” He is about to say it happened in his dream. But that makes no sense.

“I-I don’t,” he says uneasily, “Let me check.”

Jon reluctantly pulls himself out of bed and goes to the window. And he is greeted by exactly the same sight as from his dream: Arya at the target range, aiming her new boomstick.

The king pulls away from the window, skin crawling. It was just a dream. Just a dream. He leans back against the wall, closing his eyes and trying to clear his head.

“Come back to bed, Jon,” Sansa calls to him.

He wants more than anything to do exactly that. She’s a vision lying amidst the furs, red hair mussed and pale skin gleaming. But he stops himself.

“I-I--- I think I should go see to Arya. That boomstick intrigues me. Even if Lord Ash succeeds, it could be a fine weapon to have.”

“I doubt our men could reproduce them on their own. We’d need expertise from Lord Ash. It’s more than just metal work. I saw. There’s some kind of alchemy involved. And until we know for sure, it’ll be good to have at least one person who knows how to use it. Let her practice. Make love to me once more before our day must begin."

Jon gives in. Of course he does.  Sansa doesn’t ask him to taste her, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. Instead, she makes love to him with an odd urgency, repeating ‘I love you’ a thousand times, as if these are their last moments alive together.

He’s not sure how he feels about that, either.

The room doesn’t start shaking, and objects don’t start attacking them. But something hangs over them. Jon clutches her tight once they finish.

There’s a knock on the door. Jon gets to his feet and hurries to finds his bedrobe. He pulls it on and goes to the door, only opening it a crack. To his surprise, Bran is there, carried by a guard. HIs expression is a far cry from the optimism he displayed just last night.

“What is it?” Jon asks, stomach sinking.

“Sansa’s not in her room,” Bran says quickly, “I can’t find her.” He sounds petrified. “No one knows where she is. Lily says she never returned to her chambers last night.”

Thoughts of demons and loss vanish from his head. Jon turns the color of a tomato. “It’s okay, Bran---”

“---It’s not! My sister is missing! I saw it!” Bran looks on the verge of tears. “Gods, what if it was that slime Ash? What if I was wrong about him? What if he took her? Jon, I---”

“---She hasn’t been taken!” Jon says, mortified, “I---I know where she is. She’s safe.”

While his brother does look relieved, he’s just as curious. “But why didn’t she return to her quarters? Why---”

He’s cut off by his own dawning comprehension, which is writ large across his features. “Oh, Gods. You---”

“---Please, Bran, you have to---”

“---No, I don’t have to do anything. Not anything you say, anyways.”

Jon glances at the guard, who gazes at his king in amazement.

“---Gerald, take me back to my quarters,” Bran orders, “I should prepare for the Promised One’s return.”

Jon pleads briefly for his brother to remain, but to no avail. Stomach turning, he closes the door and turns back to find Sansa clutching her temple.

“Why can’t it ever be easy?” She asks him. He has no answer.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Bran:

He ultimately decides the best place to be is at the roots of the Heart Tree, and so he goes. But he does not lay his hand against the trunk or seek visions. His dreams last night were enough.

He tries to tell himself that this better than what he thought this morning. He woke from visions of monsters, or the Promised One proving (more of) a knave, of losing his eldest sister. He’d been certain this morning that Sansa was lost, missing. People still treated him like a boy, but he saw how the Promised One looked at her.

Bran hadn’t exactly minded. If he couldn’t get Lord Ash back to “his time”, he wouldn’t be a bad match for Sansa, perhaps. It would keep her at home. And Sansa deserved a hero.

Now he’s almost hoping he can’t send the man away. Because this is…

Jon’s his brother.

Okay, not technically, but still…

Bran tries to clear his mind, but it’s difficult. He’s not in charge of his mind the way others are. His head is a conduit for forces far beyond his control. The whole world, past, present, and future, moves through him. And he can barely hold it all in sometimes.

He tries to put things in perspective. Being the three-eyed raven means he cannot allow personal issues to interfere with what matters most. What matters most is the Promised One, and ending the evil facing them.

Surely, this should be resolved soon, though. True enough that the man hadn’t seemed the brightest flame on the candelabra, but he was certainly effective at beating evil creatures. That was the hard part. After that, it was just a matter of grabbing the book and saying a few words.

Bran tries to relax. Whatever was going on in his siblings’ bed, he has to be clear-headed. He owes it to the world.

He gets that odd sensation again, as if he is being embraced by the branches of the weirwood. He’s warm. He’s safe. They’re all safe. That’s what matters.

It’s strange, but Bran thought that the second the Promise One succeeded, he’d feel it. That there’d be an intense sense of relief that would overtake him the moment the Book was taken.

Maybe he hasn’t finished his quest yet. Surely, such an undertaking will take time. Bran chides himself for his impatience.

Bran tries to look for the Promised One. His control of his abilities has improved considerably, and as long as he had decent idea of who he was looking for and where, there was a good chance he could see---

But when he tries, his visions become confused and manic. His point of view bounces from place to place, and makes no sense. He sees the Promised One enormous, lying flat on the ground and bound, his horizontal form still towering. Bran sees him from a thousand different angles, even seeing the man from above. And all of a sudden, he feels himself fall, sees the Promised One’s mouth open like a great abyss and he falls----

Bran yanks himself away from his Sight, feeling nauseous. It was even worse than the dream from last night. Even in his earliest days, never had any of his sights been so… confused. It does the opposite of reassure him.

Gods, what if he’s wrong?

He has to tell---

\---someone. And he doesn’t want it to be Jon or Sansa. Not now.

Bran nervously calls for Gerald and directs his caretaker to help him find his other sister. It doesn’t exactly take long. The two of them simply follow the sound of the earth-shaking explosions coming from the archery range. Sure enough, Arya stands stands before the targets, boomstick drawn.

Several of the archery targets are literally blown away already. The few observers in the yards rub their ears gingerly, but the younger Stark sister appears unaffected. She stands rigid, feet shoulder-width apart, eyes narrowed.

Bran makes sure to shout just before she pulls the trigger again. “Arya!”

She turns, setting the boomstick down so the end points into the dirt. There are bags under her brown eyes, and she looks paler than usual. Bran has Gerald bring him close.

“Morning,” she says, wiping sweat from her brow, “Come to see me wield my new weapon?”

Bran shakes his head. A part of him that he loathes to acknowledge doesn’t like watching his sister in the yard. She reminds him too much of the dreams he once had of knighthood and adventure before he lost his legs.

“Arya, I’m worried,” Bran informs his sister, “I don’t think the Promised One is doing well. I tried to seek him out in the godswood and what I saw made no sense.”

Arya licks her lips, and Bran can tell she’s going to pretend not to be concerned. Despite everything that has happened, she retains some of her big sister instincts. “Well, he ventured into a cursed place filled with dark magic. It’s not surprising that you wouldn’t be able to see the same way. I’m sure it’s nothing, Bran. The Promised One is a brilliant man.”

Bran looks skyward for a moment, incredulous. Arya had a much higher opinion of Lord Ash than the rest of them. While everyone agreed it was impressive how the visitor killed Others and crafted machinery, in all other areas he was a buffoon and a knave. Everyone else could see it.

But Lord Ash did give Arya an amazing weapon. And, not just that, he did so without once commenting on the fact that she’s female. That meant a great deal to Arya.

“He spent nearly half his time here insulting us.”

“Not us. Jon. And Jon could do with a few insults. His kingly ego is getting too big. Lord Ash squashes wights like they’re nothing. He creates miraculous things. And he’s already saved us once. Maybe he’s not as proper and genteel as you expected, but he’s the hero we have. Besides, what good does it do us to doubt him now? It’s not like we can catch up with him at this point. If he’s failed, all we can do now is prepare and carry on with the plans we had before any Promised Ones came along.”

The younger Stark scowls at his sister. “Believe it or not, Arya, the sentiment of ‘there’s nothing we can do’ isn’t exactly reassuring.”

“What about the sentiment of ‘I have a boomstick now’? Does that help?”

Bran eyes the weapon warily. “I’m not sure, really.”

His sister glares. “Fine. But what else do you expect me to do about this? Why aren’t you telling Jon? Or Sansa? Or Ser Davos? Or Tormund?”

Bran hesitates. “Things are… awkward between Jon, Sansa, and I at the moment.”

“You’re worried you’ll disappoint them after you got them to spare Lord Ash.” Arya nods. “They still ought to know. If you think the problems with your visions are really that serious…”

There are a few moments as Bran debates whether or not to divulge the true reason for the tension between him and their siblings. Arya will find out eventually, of course, but as angry as Bran is at Jon, he doesn’t feel right telling their sister. But he doesn’t feel right not telling her either.

Regardless of why the awkwardness existed though, does it really matter? _Of course Jon needs to know. He’s king._ Bran sighs.

“I’ll… I’ll speak to him.”

“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to practice some more.” Arya lifts her boomstick and begins to aim it once more. Gerald immediately makes for the Great Keep, his strides long and hurried, clearly protective of his ears. An explosion rocks the courtyard and Bran looks over his carrier’s shoulder.

In spite of everything, he can’t help but laugh when he sees his sister knocked back on her arse, shaking her head from the recoil of her fire.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Ash:

It’s with a sort of vengeance that Ash rides back towards Winterfell. He’d had to walk/run several miles from the tower and deal with some dumb, primitive villagers to get himself a new horse to take him back. No longer focussed on retrieving the book, he feels the stress of travel more keenly.

Everything hurts. His throat feels like it was on the brink of falling apart within him thanks to the incident with the kettle. His ass feels like every prison horror story he’d ever heard. He has a hundred thousands scratches, cuts, and blisters. Not to mention, it is fucking freezing.

So it is with gritted teeth and a bad mood that Ash makes his way back to the king’s castle. Enough. He’s done his part. Time for these idiots to send him back to Michigan, back to his time, where they had penicillan and electricity. Ash has had enough.

When the gates open, basically the entire court waits for him in the yard, eyes wide like cattle. Parched and aching, Ash heaves himself from his saddle and makes for the nearest well, desperate for something to drink.

King Cousin-fucker, the freaky prophecy kid and his carrier, and Princess Red hurry over as Ash fills a bucket with water.

“Well?!” The kid asks, sounding strained, “Have you done it? Have you succeeded? Do you have the Book?”

After all he’s been through, the last thing Ash has patience for are demands. He makes a point of tipping the bucket towards his mouth and swallowing as much as he can until his lungs force him to stop. Ash gasps and wipes his mouth, then finally reaches into his tunic and tosses the damn book to Prince Prophecy.

“Yeah, yeah I got it. Read it and weep. Now, time for you to send me back!”

The kid inspects the book for several seconds, then looks at him again. “And did you say the words when you took it?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Ash replies impatiently. There’s a wave of relief that washes over the entire court, as if every person held their breath. “More or less.”

The kid’s fingers tighten over the book’s spine. “More or less? What does that mean?”

“I mean I said the words! Pretty much the whole thing!” Ash insists, annoyed. He tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach as he sets the bucket down and crosses his arms over his chest.

“‘Pretty much’? The words must be said exactly!” Muttering erupts among the crowd. Every member of the royal family is now looking at Ash in alarm. “‘Klaatu Barada Nikto’. Did you say that exactly?!”

“Well, maybe I didn’t enunciate every single god damn syllable exactly, but I said more or less that!”

Prince Prophecy glares at him. “There is no 'more or less'. You say every single god damn syllable exactly, or you’ve failed!”

“Look!” Ash says defensively, pointing at the kid. “You told me that if I got that book for you, you’d send me home! That was the deal! It’s not my problem if that’s not good enough! You have the Necronomicon, now it’s your turn to pay up! Now send me home!”

“You’ve doomed us all,” King Cousin-Fucker says, venom in his low voice. He clutches his foxy cousin to his side.

Ash rolls his eyes. “You got what you wanted. It’s not my fault if you can’t fight your battles from here on out. I put myself through Hell to get you that thing. Now, you’d better keep your promise.”

“Useless fool of a man!” The prince says, “We’ll send you home. Better to be rid of you! Gerald!”

Everyone begins to pull away. Ash scowls at them, with their accusing faces, and makes for his workshop.

As he walks away, though, he feels a tug at his sleeve. Ash turns and sees both of the princesses standing before him, their eyes pleading.

When he first met them, Ash could hardly believe the two were sisters. They certainly don’t look like sisters. Arya, the younger one he’d made the boomstick for, is petite, super-skinny, like Twiggy almost, but muscular. She has messy dark brown hair and brown eyes, thick eyebrows, a small mouth, a square jaw, and carries herself like Cleopatra Jones. She wears pants and is the ultimate rough and tumble tomboy. Despite her strength, she has a baby face, and every inch of her screams ‘kid’.

Her sister is technically only a couple of years older, but every bit of her screams ‘bow-chicka-wow-wow.’ Arya is alright looking, kind of cute, but her sister is a bombshell; all deep blue eyes, pouty lips, wavy auburn hair, and she has the sort of cheekbones that would make Farrah Fawcett jealous. Not to mention, the rockin’ bod. She is everything Ash fantasizes about when he thinks ‘Princess.’

At this moment, though, he can finally see the resemblance between them. Their expressions are identical, and they carry themselves with a similar resilience.

While Ash doesn’t consider his feelings towards each woman to be similar, right now they are both eliciting an ocean of guilt from him, and neither have yet said a word.

“Look, I---” But Ash finds he has nothing to say. He rubs his brow, unable to meet their eyes.

“You can’t give up,” Arya insists, “Bran’s wrong. You can still---”

“---I can’t do anything!” Ash replies angrily, “Don’t you get it?”

Sansa shakes her head. “We still have faith in you. We still believe you can save us.”

“Bran and Jon are just jealous. They’re being idiots, “ Arya says, “But we know you can do this. We’ll help you. I’ve been practicing with the boomstick, I’m good with a blade, and Sansa’s read some of Bran’s books and she can get you anything in the castle.”

“And I’m sure I can convince Jon and Bran to give you another chance. It was wrong to send you off on your own like that, but this time----”

But Ash cuts Sansa off. “Don’t you get it, Sweetheart? It’s over. I’m not the hero everyone thought I was. For pete’s sake, I’m a greeter at a mega-mart! I need to get home. To my own time. It’s where I belong. I screwed it up, and now you all will have to deal with it.”

He’s so sick of fighting. Technically, it’s only been a few days, but it feels like a lifetime ago that he was driving up to that damn cabin with Linda. He’s been attacked, possessed, mutilated, tortured, invaded, tricked, terrified. It has been nonstop. He had to decapitate his girlfriend and fight with her detached head. He had to cut off his own possessed hand.

Ash just wants to go home. Surely they don’t need him anyways. He’d screwed up, hadn’t he? And they still have the book. They’llfigure something out.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t belong here!” Arya protests. Ash shakes his head again.

“I’m here because some brainy chick was killed before she could finish reciting a spell. It’s an accident. I can’t help you any more than I could help her.”

Arya looks discouraged, but Sansa shocks him by grabbing his remaining hand in both of hers and stepping close to him.

“The past is past, but I still believe,” she says desperately, “Please, Lord Ash, at the very least, try. If not for Bran or Jon, then for Arya and myself. I know you care for us. You made that weapon for Arya and we---”

She reddens then. “---We shared some tenderness.”

Ash cringes. “That… That was a mistake, Sansa, I’m sorry. I was just---”

“---I _know_ the difference between true affection and empty lust!” She snaps. “It wasn’t nothing!”

At this, he loses his patience. He gathers up all his self-loathing and tries to make it into anger. “Well, it sure as Hell was nothing to you, wasn’t it? You were pretty quick to tell me to blow when that cousin of yours swept in!”

“What?!” Arya asks, bewildered.

Before either of them can respond, bells start ringing. Scouts atop the ramparts begin shouting.

“MONSTERS! DEMONS! THEY’RE HERE!”

Ash tenses up, then quickly steps in front of the Stark sister. A terrible shriek echoes from above and Ash looks up in horror.

Flying overhead is what looks like one of those exhibits of pterodactyl bones he saw during a childhood trip to the Smithsonian in D.C. Atop the skeletal flying beast rode a rotting corpse brandishing a sword.

More follow, swooping down into the courtyard to attack members of the panicking crowd. Ash reaches for his rifle.

“Stay back,” he tells the girls. But neither of them listen. Arya unsheathes a thin sword and charges toward one of the monsters attacking a youth. Sansa hurries toward the gallows, skirts gathered in her hands, and climbs them, grabbing a copper pan and a stick. She begins beating it furiously.

“To the dungeons and the smitheys!” She yells out to the crowd. “Grab the child and weapons! Bar the doors!”

Ash scowls and immediately makes to run after her and grab her, when there’s a horrible thud coming from the north gate. Then another. And another. It thunders through the castle grounds and Ash feels sick. They’re trying to break down the gates.

Without even thinking, Ash seizes the plastic end of his chainsaw’s start chord in his teeth and yanks it twice before it begins to whir. He charges for the first deadite he sees, tearing through the shield it brandishes with his blade and bashing its skull in with the butt of his gun. The skeletal creature falls to the ground and it’s with relish that Ash hacks its limbs off.

_Groovy._

It’s like he’s possessed again, but in a good way. Next thing Ash knows, he’s hacked half a dozen of the demonic bastards to bits. And he’s ready for more. He feels like he’s inches from a last-second touchdown against Ohio State. Despite all the chaos around him, he dozen stop, his every instinct focused on ending these evil bastards.

Then he hears a scream. A scream that rises above the others. Because he knows that voice.

One of the pterodactyl things grabs Sansa’s shoulders in its talons and lifts her into the air. Ash charges toward the scene, vaulting over a wheelbarrow and desperately aiming his rifle. What if he hits her, though?

Ash tries to focus, and is shocked when he sees the king leap from a second story walkway to tackle the monster. He manages to catch it, landing on the things back and hacking at the thing’s neck with his sword.

The pterodactyl thing goes down and even releases Sansa from its claws. Ash immediately runs forward to catch her as she screams, reaching out with his good arm---

But just before she falls onto him, she’s caught in midair by another flying monster. The first one, now headless, crashes into a mountain of hay bales. But a screaming Sansa is carried off. Ash shoots wildly, and hears someone else do the same.

But it’s no use. Though most of the forces attacking the castle are defeated and what’s left of them start to retreat, Sansa and several others are carried off.

Ash falls to his knees, horrified. The rest of the undead run off, the gates are left standing, but there’s no victory.

An odd quiet, but for the sounds of sobs and cries of anguish, falls upon the grounds.  For a while, that’s all there is.

Then it’s broken by a loud, deep cry of rage. Ash watches in astonishment as King Jon yanks himself from the mound of hay he landed in and begins sprinting towards the north gate, eyes wide and mad, sword raised.

Ash, in spite of a desire to do exactly the same thing, gets to his feet and tackles the king to ground as he passes. The two men tumble into the dirt and struggle.

“LET ME GO!” Jon yells. “LET ME GO NOW! I ORDER YOU! THEY’VE TAKEN HER! I HAVE TO---”

“YOU HAVE TO STOP! YOU’RE NOT GOING TO SAVE ANYONE GETTING YOURSELF KILLED!”

Jon struggles some more, until Ash finally repays him for the night before and gives him a left hook to the jaw.  



	3. Army of Darkness (and Coldness) (Which is not a word)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sons of Bitches arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHA! The violent conclusion of Army of Coldness! I may be the only one who cares, but fuck it, I love this thing. Even though I've had to o back and fix embarrassing mistakes about a thousand times since I started. BATTLES! BLOOD! SISTERLY BONDING! BOOMSTICKS! ENJOY!

Jon:

Watery mud engulfs half his face, and Jon stares with his free eye, at the courtyard. Some hurry to put out small fires. Jon can barely move, and not just because one of those things dropped him into this puddle from about thirty feet into the air.

He hasn’t felt this helpless since his death. As quickly as the hoarde came, they flew away, carrying Sansa and several other screaming women with them. 

The structural damage to Winterfell wasn’t great, but it didn’t need to be. They’d taken the most important part of home. 

Jon has come back from Death, but no one has ever come back from the White Walkers.

As an army, they were different from both the legends he’d read and the brief description of them he got from Sam. Sam never mentioned a thing about flying creatures. Some rode the animated corpses of horses, a few rode ice-spiders, but their army as a whole was slow, with only the most powerful among them demonstrating any speed. That had been the one advantage everyone had been counting on. 

There were all manner of legends about them--- that they spoke a magic language, that they could project visions into peoples’ heads, that the Night’s King came about after being seduced by one of their women. Bran saw their origin in his visions--- the Children of the Forest made them to combat the armies of men invading their lands. The Children are almost certainly gone, but their creation remains. 

But this… This wasn’t anything like any of the experiences or stories Jon knew. Though the White Walkers themselves seemed to possess intelligence, the wights--- the corpses--- were just supposed to be puppets. At most, they acted on instinct. They simply attacked and killed. But these creatures…. 

They look a lot like wights, their flesh rotting, shells of a living human. But their eyes were white, not blue, they spoke, they floated, they mutilated themselves, they shrieked and had… well, personalities. Granted, they were all the same personality--- cruel, mischievous, sadistic, grotesque, perverse, gleeful, prophetic--- but they were personalities. And, of course, there were the gargoyles.

Gargoyles were supposed to be purely Valyrian, creatures of fire and stone, not ice and flesh. 

No, this is a new type of demon. Related to the White Walkers and their wights, yes, but not the same.

And possibly a thousand times as dangerous. 

His mind goes to his brief encounter with the Night’s King. That enemy was intelligent, yes, and prone to psychological warfare. But his came in the form of intimidation, demonstrating his power and the extent of his advantage over them by raising an all new army of wights in front of Jon’s eyes. But this… This was a different type of attack. Mental, yes. But the Night’s King, were he behind this, would have done something grand and purely intimidating. He would have crushed Winterfell’s walls, or attacked long enough to turn most of the household into his puppets. This was quick, only some superficial damage. But what these monsters did was as devastating. Focused, simple, small, but deliberate and perfectly crafted.

These monsters apparently know what even Jon only now realizes. Taking Sansa from him is as effective as any wound. 

Despite the clear differences in these monsters versus the ones he’s face before, there’s no question in Jon’s mind where his lover has been taken. Jon knows, in his gut, that these creatures will be joining up with the White Walkers. He doesn’t need Bran or his visions to tell him that.

The enemy now has an ally with altogether different powers. And they now have the heart of their enemies’ leader.

People circle around him, including Arya, who crouches down, her face stricken. “Can you stand?”

“I don’t know.” Even if he didn’t feel mentally and emotionally shattered, there’s still some significant physical damage. He’d done his best to land as safely as he could, but there was only so much he could manage. Arya and one of her friends reach under Jon’s arms and hoist him up between them. Jon makes himself try to stand on his wobbly legs. Amazingly, his legs seem intact, though both ankles are twisted and he can feel at least three cracked ribs.

They help him over to a hay bale by the armory. Jon winces, clutching his middle as he sits. “They took her, Arya.”

The smudges of dirt on her face are marked by rivers of tears. “I know.”

A maester hurries over to examine him, confirming Jon’s assessment of his injuries, along with numerous severe bruises and scrapes. The Maester calls for bandages, lacings, and attendants to help him. Jon sits limp and follows their instructions half-heartedly as they patch him up. 

A figure saunters up to them, his shadow as distinctive as his deep, yet oddly nasal voice. “Make sure to patch him up real good. Not everyone can kill Deadites with a missing hand like I can.”

An energy finally hits Jon, one of pure fury. Pushing one hapless nurse aside, Jon forces himself to his injured feet, trying to stay balanced. He meets the So-Called Promised One’s dark eyes. “You!” He howled. “This is all your fault! You’ve doomed us all!”

Ash steps back and holds up his remaining hand. “Hey, look here, Pal, you all were having trouble with these demons long before I showed up. I got your damned book for you. It’s not my fault---”

“----Yes! Yes it is!” Jon shouts, shaking, “We were merely plagued with lumbering wights before you and your idiotic contraptions fell from the sky! We had monsters of our own, aye, but these things arrived with you! And the wights we had became more powerful! And you, you bumbling, lazy, pig-headed, ignorant, lecherous, condescending oaf, we worshiped you, promised you all you desired, and all you had to do was get the book and say three words!”

“---Hey now, those words were impossible, nobody could---”

“---KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!!!” Jon bellows. “I REMEMBER THEM! THAT WAS ALL YOU HAD TO DO!”

“Hey, I’d just been knocked---” But with a glance at Jon’s bandaged ribs, Ash ends that sentence prematurely. “Look, man, maybe I screwed up, alright? But we’re not going to help Red by wasting time pointing fingers!”

“HER NAME IS SANSA!” Arya shrieks. 

Ash’s face manages to soften quite a bit despite the sharpness of his chin. “Sansa. I know. I’m sorry. It’s just an affectionate---”

“---Don’t you dare,” Jon cuts in, his rage now simmering, “Don’t you dare speak of her. Don’t you dare speak of her as if you cared for her. I see your cheap deflection for what it is,  _ Lord Ash,  _ and I will not have you sully her with it. She was little more than a potential conquest to you, but you are surrounded by the people that truly loved her.”

At this, Ash steps forward, jaw stiffening, eyes focussing. “Listen, Jack---”

“---Jon! King Jon!”

“--- _ Your Majesty,”  _ the fool says sarcastically, “Maybe I wasn’t madly in love with her, and maybe I am new here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about her! I wouldn’t be here, talking to you, if I didn’t care.”

“An admirable attempt, Lord Ash, but we know what you think of us all,” Jon replies icily, “‘Primitive’ though we may be, we’re not half as stupid as you believe us to be. You’re playing at concern now because you’re hoping I'll still have Bran send you home instead of throwing you in the pit again. But don’t bother. I have nothing to gain from feeding you to those monsters. But maybe sending you back to your time will send those beasts back with you. I’ve lost the woman I love. I can stand to lose you too.”

Jon expects the man slump his shoulders, turn, and walk away, perhaps with a little sigh of cowardly relief. 

What he doesn’t expect is for Ash’s fist to bash into the right side of his jaw. 

Jon doubles over, clutching his face, more overcome by shock than pain. Normally he’d respond by immediately returning the blow and beating the man into a bloody pulp. But he has no time for petty brawls of pride. The boy is dead, the man was born, and he is a king. He cannot honor Sansa with flailing fists. He is king, and he must focus on keeping those that are left safe.

“Jon!” Arya says, helping him up again. “You want me to shoot him with  _ my  _ boomstick?”

Rubbing his chin, Jon shakes his head. “No. We need to devote all of our energy and weapons to getting everyone south.”

“South?” Arya replies, gaping.

Heart sinking, Jon nods. His words taste like poison. “They’ve breached Winterfell, they can do it again. There is no hope for us here. Our only chance for survival now is to leave, go South, and take everyone.”

“Abandon Winterfell? We can’t! And how far South do you mean? The Riverlands are in ruin. They can’t support us! I doubt the Vale will be much better equipped to do so.

Jon cringes. “Further. We… We shall have to surrender ourselves to the mercy of the South, explain the threat, hope they’ll take up the fight.”

“Jon, you can’t mean The Lannisters! Cersei will have you torn apart!”

“If that is what it takes to get our people to safety, that is what it takes. Maybe we’ll get lucky and meet with my aunt instead. But we can’t do this. We can’t win this war. Not here.”

“We can’t, Jon! Winterfell withstood the Long Night!”

“The Long Night didn’t deliver this variety of demon to our gates. I’m sorry, Arya, but the North is lost. The best we can do is preserve the Northerners and seek out other powers to save us.”

The only slight relief in this dreadful conversation is that Lord Ash falls silent rather than cutting in with his usual rude comments and ignorant opinions. Arya hangs her head.

And their guest then starts for a tower of wooden crates. He climbs them until he reaches the upper staircase, and strides across the courtyard balcony, his face unreadable. Jon stares at him in amazement. Everyone else gathers together to do the same.

There’s a moment of silence. Ash’s eyes narrow. 

“GO AHEAD AND RUN, THEN!” He bellows, “RUN HOME AND CRY TO MAMA!”

The man had a confounding accent, but the way he pronounced ‘Mama’ here was especially odd. Ash saunters back and forth across the balcony, boomstick perched on his shoulder.

“Me, I’m not ready to give up. I intend to stay here and fight!”

A certain madness hits Jon, and he starts to laugh. 

This stranger is just so  _ ignorant!  _ He knows nothing of these lands, their history, their resources, their circumstances. He came here from a time of wonders, with incredible tools at his disposal. It was easy for him to speak of fighting when he had a stick that could produce ground-shaking explosions with a twitch of a finger. But even so, he was only one man. As they only had so much. He’d not been here for the years of freezing weather, war, neglected harvests, sadistic tyranny, and iron-born raids. Though he’d clearly been through some great struggle prior to arriving here, he had not suffered as long as they had. Jon had seen Ash’s hands. They were are soft as Sansa’s. And he’d studied Ash’s general behavior. The man was clearly used to having all manner of things immediately available to him. His world had nowhere near the limitations they did, and their would-be savior therefore had no experience or knowledge of dealing with them. He might be able to fight a few of his demons at a time with his near-magical boomstick and chainsaw, but he’d never faced a true wight before, let alone a White Walker. He had no concept of the odds they faced. 

“And how do you intend that we fight this, exactly?” Arya demands. “You made me a boomstick, aye, but it took you all night. And the Army of Darkness could be here in hours. We were already weak in supplies, people, weapons, food, and order when you came here. Our chances were already nearly non-existent. But now the threat has been multiplied. They’ve proven that they can take all that is dearest to us from us forever in a matter of minutes. So how do you suppose we ‘stay and fight’, Oh Lord White-Shaft-Groove-King?!”

There are titters through the crowd, but Ash seems undaunted. 

“I have a few ideas for… enhancing our defenses. And I know how we can call upon allies.”

“Oh, and how would we do that, exactly? We’ve called upon all manner of people repeatedly!” Jon says, exasperated.

“Easy, I chop up some Deadites and send the parts to everyone. That dragon queen I’ve heard about. The… other countries around here. The Ironborn. The Lannisters.”

Cries of outrage erupt through the crowd. “YOU WOULD HAVE US GO PLEAD TO THE PEOPLE WHO KILLED OUR FAMILIES AND RAVAGED OUR LANDS?!” Arya cries.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Missy. You provide proof of the serious shit that’s coming for all of us, and even those assholes you hate won’t be able to ignore it. Do you want to save your sister or not?”

Jon is sympathetic to Ash’s pronouncement until the last sentence. It’s like a blow to the stomach. He clenches his fists, cringes, and blinks back tears. 

“You will cease saying such things,” Jon says, “Sansa is lost to us. No one comes back from the wight hoard.”

“Sansa wasn’t taken from the wight hoard,” Ash replies, “It was the Deadites. There’s still hope.”

“And how do you know that?!” Jon demands, hating the slight swell of hope within him.

“Because I was possessed by them! Twice! Or, rather, once. Then my right hand was.” He holds up his chainsaw. “How do you think this happened? There are ways a person can come back.”

“He’s right!”

Gawen, one of the guards, carries Bran through the crowd. His little brother holds the Necronomicon open. “It’s in here. There are ways one possessed by the Deadites can be cured. Sansa was taken alive. There’s a chance. But that chance is lost if we run. We only have so much time to save her and the others who were taken.”

Jon swallows. “Bran… Are you sure?”

His brother looks at him with desperate eyes. “I know Ash didn’t work out the way I promised. I’m sorry. I really am. But the only reason Ash failed was because he botched the words. If he hadn’t, I’m certain it would have worked. And if we get Sansa back in time, I’m certain we can do this.”

Jon feels every eye in Winterfell on him. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Two of every eye on him belong to a person. There were hundreds of eyes on him, and all could perish, along with perhaps millions more, if he made the wrong decisions. He couldn’t sacrifice them all to save one person, even if that person was Sansa. 

But then, they still might all die. It was likely that they had no chance to truly run, get away in time. The journey itself would be dangerous, but if they ran, they might not make it two steps. They’d lose everything for nothing.

But they still might. And Jon had a duty.

“...They didn’t just take Princess Sansa, Your Grace.”

Jon looks up. One of the stonemasons, dirty and sharp-eyed, stepped forward.

“They took my Liz. And other girls, too. And Old Sissy. And they’ll take more. We’ll follow you wherever you lead us, My King. But I don’t think running is the answer. We stayed through the Ironborn, the Boltons. We’ve been here through a thousand winters. So much has been done to restore House Stark, to save the North. I don’t want to abandon my family or my home.”

“Aye!” Another person cried. Then another. And another. Soon the whole crowd was crying for approval.

Jon takes another deep breath. “Very well!” He announces, nearly overcome with pride. “We shall stay and fight!”

The court cheers. When it dies down, Ash speaks up from the balcony. “ALRIGHT! RADICAL!” He grins. “Now, everyone listen, we’re---”

“---NO!” Jon straightens as best he can and wobbles to the staircase. He climbs to the balcony unevenly, but determinedly, and he places the flat of his hand against Ash’s chest, staring him down. “I appreciate the encouragement,” Jon reluctantly admits, “And we shall listen to whatever ideas you have. But you are not in command. My people shall be led by their king, not a man who couldn’t remember three words.”

Ash reddens. “One little mistake, man!”

“No, not one little mistake. You knew how much depended on your success, and you sneered when we tried to make sure you could do it. The words were not long, but the consequences were known, and are great.”

“If I had known Sansa would be hurt---”

Jon actually steps back at this, surprised. “Aren’t we all just ‘primitive screwheads’? You seemed to care little before.”

“I told you, Man, I care about her. She’s a hot redhead in a sea of primitive screwheads. Not that I only care about her foxiness. I like Little Princess Badass over there, too, and she doesn’t get my motor going. But I figured I could remember the words and she’d be fine and a bunch of primitive assholes were just hasseling me.”

Jon understands about a third of this. “Regardless, I shall command my armies as I have many times before. I will grant you command and authority in constructing our special weapons, but you are not king here. I am. And you shall shall treat me as such.”

Ash scowls. “I’ll toe the line, but only because I need to. I’m an American, and we don’t have kings in America.”

“That’s nice. You’re not… wherever that is. This is the North. I am King here.”

Jon turns away from the stranger and moves to address the court, quickly and efficiently issuing orders and assignments. He designates a team to work under Ash, and orders for the “Classic”--- the giant yellow wheelhouse thing Ash brought--- to be repaired.

He takes Ash’s advice in regards to providing evidence of their enemies, and sets out with Arya to hunt down and dismember any Deadites that could be found. They were lucky, uncovering two, and lopping off their hands and feet.

Jon and his party return to the castle to find that the air was ringing with sound of metal clashing with metal, to hear a dull rumbling from Ash’s “Classic”, which was being covered in metal attachments that slowly rendered it unrecognizable and more immense than before. The smell of smoke is almost as pervading as the noise.

Jon hears a cry of joy and beholds their so-called “promised one” sliding out on his back from beneath the Classic, covered in grease, grinning at a couple of their smiths. 

“Didn’t I tell you? Nothing kills the classic, not even a demonic portal that throws it back in time! Let’s see those undead shits take on the warmobile!”

The smiths were backing away. “Is it…. Is it supposed to make that noise, My Lord?”

“Oh yeah,” Ash replied, stroking the front fondly, “This kitty is meant to pur.”

“Are you… Are you completely sure, My Lord?” The other, whom Jon recognized as Arya’s friend, asked.

“Listen, Gary---”

“----Gendry---”

“---Geddy. I know you’re new to this, but trust me. I’m from Detroit. The MO-TOR CI-TAAYYY. This is a 100% surefire, piece of American-made machinery. She’s unstoppable!”

“That’s…. That’s what we’re afraid of, M’Lord.”

“Oh, cool your jets, Muscles,” Ash answers, clapping Gendry on one of his immense shoulders. “She’s like one of those--- What do you call ‘em, the big dogs with the barrels on their necks---- Saint Bernards! Big, powerful, unstoppable, but sweet and perfectly trained Trust me. The Deadites tried to posses this baby before, and she fought them off. We’re good.”

Jon walks over, clearing his throat. He greets Ash by holding up one of the dismembered, but still-moving hands. It makes a fist, except for the middle finger, which extends itself violently. Ash cringes.

“You mind? It wasn’t too long ago that this happened.” He holds up his metal hand. “Glad to see you and Little Princess Badass managed to score some appendages, though.”

“Do you know where Ser Davos is?”

“Kitchen, last time I heard. He’s a real buzzkill, you know?”

Jon ignores this and looks over Ash’s shoulder at a line of his people standing at a long table. “What are they doing?”

Ash turns and irritates Jon by throwing an arm over his shoulders. He points proudly. “That, King Jack---”

“---Jon!”

“---’Jon’ doesn’t rhyme. Anyways, that, King Jack, is what built the glorious Motor City, my hometown of Detroit. That is the Assembly Line! Every cat gets a small task, does it, then hands their work off to the next guy, who does something, then hands it off. Allows us to produce things at fifty times the speed. A bunch of regular Joe’s can do the work of a hundred of your best mechanics in the space of a day. Trust me, I’m probably busting up the space-time continuum something fierce by introducing it to you. But it’ll get us the weapons we need.”

“I see.” The urge to examine it further hits him, but he suppresses it. “We sureyed the land while we were out. It’s time for a war council. Tally up your successes so far and be in the Great Hall in twenty minutes.”

“Yup.”

When everyone assembles, accounts prove far better than Jon dared to hope. Scouts report  no signs of approaching demons yet. Ash’s “assembly line” was producing weapons at a prodigious pace. Bran has completely translated and isolated the rituals for curing the Deadites. The walls are strong, stores are full, the people are fueled by fury and determination.

“One of our biggest issues shall be training our people in the use of our new weapons,” Davos remarks.

“It won’t be easy,” Arya agrees, “The kick back from a boomstick can send you flying a dozen feet if you’re not careful. They’re dangerous.”

“Not everyone is going to get a boomstick, it’s not possible,” Ash admits, “We’re sticking more to producing liquid explosives and triggers-by-arrow. I mean, even if we could make the guns in time, there’s the issue of powder and ammo. There’s only so many bullets we can make, and they have to be crafted carefully, or they’ll just jam up the barrels. Also, I’ll need to teach someone, or a few people, to drive. If I’m taken out, we’re going to need others who can pilot the warmobile.”

“Just what exactly are you intending for that monstrosity, anyways?” Davos asks.

“Full-speed ahead, going to plow through Deadites like they’re bowling pins.”

“Bowls of---?”

“---Nevermind.” Ash sighs. “I’m going to run them down and crush them. I’m planning for us to go hard on the offense. Try to blast and bust as many as we can as quickly as we can.”

Jon does a double take. “But what about Sansa? She may be among those Deadites we ‘blast’.” Horrible images of his last moments with Rickon flash through his mind.

The room goes quiet. To his credit, the stranger does look chastened by this. “I don’t think she will, necessarily. These things… they like to screw with your head, hurt you as much as possible. Sansa’s their ace in the hole. They won’t want to waste her as a foot soldier. Instead, they’ll probably want to keep her out of the fray so some undead demon bitch can parade around in her body in front of us and mess with us. They’ll want to make you hesitate, make you second-guess, make you give up. They have a better chance of doing that by rubbing what they’ve done to Sansa in our faces. They’ll probably do it with the other girls they took, too. Send them straight towards their loved ones to weaken their resolve. But… Yes. There’s a chance she could be caught in the crossfire. We can’t guarantee her safety. But then, we never could. But trust me, Death would still be a mercy compared to what she’s suffering now---”

“---Shut up!”

Bran shocks everyone by slamming his fist down on the table, tears in his eyes. “We would have her safety guaranteed if not for you! We’d all be safe, if you’d just remembered the words! The reason anyone listens to you is because of your stupid weapons! And because I was stupid enough to believe in you! You’d be nothing without them!”

Ash stands. “Listen kid, before I came here, I faced a bunch of Deadites with four other people. All of them died, but I survived, and I wasn’t the only one armed. I survived, one-handed, while a giant redneck with his own boomstick got possessed and dismembered. So give me a little credit! And I’m sorry about the words, alright? I am! But I didn’t ask to be your Chosen One, I didn’t promise to be your savior. I promised to bring the book back. And yeah, I fucked up, and I hate that. But whether any of us like it or not, I’m the one here who has faced these things and understands what we need to get rid of them. I’m sorry, alright?! But that doesn’t change a thing. If your sister can be saved, then I’ll do whatever I can to save her. But there’s only so much I or anyone else can do. And we have to be prepared for that if any of us are going to survive!”

Bran clutches the handles of his chair and hoists himself up with his arms. He looks at Jon. “I lost Mother, Father, Robb, Ser Rodrick, Jojen, Summer, Hodor, Rickon… I can’t lose anymore. If Sansa’s lost, I’m lost.” He glances at Arya. “The same goes for her.” His eyes meet Jon’s again. “And you.”

There’s a moment of silence before Bran calls for Gawen to take him away.

Nobody looks at each other as the door shuts. 

It’s Arya who suddenly breaks the silence. “I’m fighting, Jon. You’re not stopping me. I have to. After Ash, I’m the best with the boomstick.”

He feels ill. “I know. But you’ll be training and managing your own command during the battle. So you won’t be right at the front. You’ll command the ranged divisions, the rifles ones primarily, but also many of the archers.”

Arya nods. 

“You all will have to prepare yourselves,” Ash says with an uncharacteristic low volume. 

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Jon replies.

“No, I mean… The kid, he wasn’t going to be in the trenches anyways, so maybe he can afford to make all sorts of vows about Sansa. But the rest of us can’t. The Deadites can disguise themselves, pretend to be human, pretend to be the person they possessed. And they’re damn good at it. They may even be able to return the person to their bodies briefly to do the job. They’ll know everything that their victims know, know all manner of things we know. There’s a very, very good chance that one of us will find Sansa, curled up in the corner, weeping, pleading with us to help her, saying all of the things that are most likely to make us break down.”

Jon buries his face in his hands. “You said you were possessed, Ash. Tell us what happened. What is Sansa suffering now?”

The stranger takes a deep breath. “Keep in mind, I was only fully taken over for a few minutes. But damned if they weren’t the longest minutes of my life. When the Deadites take over, the evil burns and rots your skin, your eyes, breaks and molds your bones, twists your tongue, and you feel every bit of it, as if you’re still there. You hear your mouth and mind say the most horrible, twisted things you were never insane enough to imagine. And you can see yourself, see what they turn your body into, see what what they make you do, make you feel all the pain they inflict, all the pain they want to inflict. It was horrifying enough that I was utterly giddy and thrilled to hack off my own hand to keep that thing from infecting the rest of me. The demon that has Sansa now, it wants to destroy you, torture you, hurt you in every way. And right now, Sansa can feel not only all the things it’s doing to her, but all the things it wants to do to you and everything and everyone she’s ever loved, making her revisit all of the worst things she’s ever experienced, all of her most powerful regrets. All while it’s probably tearing off bits of her skin and breaking her fingers one by one.”

“---Please, stop.” Arya pleads, weeping.

Ash takes a deep breath. “Gladly. But… You all have to be ready. You may see the real her again while the demon still controls her, she’ll probably beg you for help, and mean it. But the only help we’ll be able to give her is either succeeding with one of the book’s rituals, or killing her. The demon will fight the first option, and will run head first into the second. And even after she’s dead, they’ll use her voice to taunt you, remind you of what you did. I lost my sister, my best friends, and my girlfriend to these things, watched them get possessed one by one. I was forced to decapitate the gal I loved with a shovel. After that, her severed head wept and asked me why, reminded me that we were supposed to be together forever. My sister pleaded with me, begging to know why I would lock her in a cold, dark cellar. I saw a woman nearly get mauled to death by her own mother.”

Jon squirms. “Is there anything, anything at all that might serve us.”

Ash hesitates. “The mother I told you about? She’d been possessed for weeks by that point. Her daughter was one of the people that found the Necronomicon and was translating it. At one point, the mother, Henrietta, she had me up against the wall, was about to rip my skull out. But her daughter, Annie, began singing a lullaby Henrietta sang to her when she was a baby. The song, the memories, it found her mother in there somewhere, and brought the mother back just long enough for me to get away. It was only for a few seconds, and it only made the demon stop moving a bit. It didn’t bring the real Henrietta back. But it did get to her.” Ash looks at Jon and Arya. “The two of you might have a chance of slowing her down long enough to restrain and cure her. You’d have to use some sort of memory, remind her of who she is, how you all love each other. And I can’t guarantee it’ll work. But… It might help.”

Jon swallows. “We should get the word out to people whose family were taken.” He bows his head. He’d thought burning Ygritte’s body was painful. At least she couldn’t feel it.

“How were you freed from your possession the first time?” 

Jon lifts his head, shocked that this had not occurred to him. Davos looks at Ash curiously.

“The sun came up and… I don’t know, it just left me.”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “Are you saying the Deadites could be freed on their own by morning?”

“No. We’ve both seen Deadites in sunlight since. Maybe they left me on purpose. Made a mistake because they wanted to torture me some more. I have no idea why the thing left me. But I know it came back.”

“So even if we cure Sansa, she could just be possessed again?” Arya inquires glumly.

“You’d have to ask Bran. Like I said, the Deadites might have left me by choice. I didn’t get any cleansing ritual or spell or anything from that book. Hopefully whatever your brother is cooking up is more effective.”

The ironic thing about the word “hopefully” is that it rarely inspires hope. It certainly doesn’t now. 

“Can horses be possessed by this menace?” Davos asks. Everyone looks at him.

“I was wondering about cavalry,” his Hand says evenly. 

“No idea. Mine just got spooked.”

 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

 

Arya:

If the men under her command have any issue with taking orders from a young woman, they show little sign of it. Whether this is out of loyalty to Jon, the Stark name itself, or the desperation of the situation, she isn’t sure. Probably some combination of those things. 

Many of these men have seen her fight, though. In the yards, on patrol, in the courtyards when the Deadites attacked. She’s asked for many of the men who have witnessed this. 

In the five days since the demons took Sansa, the people of Winterfell moved mountains to prepare for the upcoming attack. Each man, woman, and child threw themselves passionately into whatever task they were given. Never has Arya felt prouder of her people.

And, speaking of throwing things passionately…

They said that the loss of one’s maidenhead hurt. That is what she heard many times, and even read once or twice. When she returned to Winterfell, Sansa gave her some books on being a lady from their childhood and marked pages she needed Arya to learn. “I know you’ll never have time to be a lady like myself,” her sister told her, “And you don’t need to be. But there are things I need help with, and there are matters you’ll need to understand.”

Arya did end up reading the entirety of the books. And, aside from the pieces on household management, diplomacy, and customs Sansa marked for her, there were also pieces of morality. In particular, chastity. And, of course, there were passages on how carnal profligacy leads only to suffering for a lady, how the loss of one’s maidenhead always hurt, but was worse when done out of wedlock.

Arya also knew, though, that a girl can lose one’s maidenhead through extensive riding, and she rode extensively from her first pony. So, when she straddled Gendry atop her bed and lowered her hips, there was at most some slight discomfort. 

Barely discomfort, either, more like unfamiliarity. And it went away quickly enough.

Indeed, it didn’t take long for it to feel like having him inside her was the most familiar, natural, and indeed,  _ necessary _ thing in the world. She clutched him to her desperately as their hips moved. In fact, as the act continued, certain behaviors that she once found awkward became passionate instinct. Kissing him, for instance, used to be a task that compelled her to overthink. So were indications of where he should touch her. 

She always felt self-conscious when kissing Gendry before. Her urges startled her, but also conflicted with her thoughts. The fact that she wasn’t the typical, beautiful maiden bounced around her head violently. That her skin was bruised and scraped and calloused rather than clear and soft. That her hair was a mess of knots and snags that would inhibit Gendry from running his hands through it. That she didn’t smell like flowers. That her mouth probably tasted of ale, salted meat, and possibly even dirt instead of fine wine and mint. 

Then the deadites came, took her sister, and an army of demons was due at any moment. 

Arya wasn’t going to die a virgin. And she wasn’t going to die not having had Gendry. 

Her lack of traditional beauty turned out to be inconsequential. And while the rush to prepare for their enemies left everyone with little to no free time, she and Gendry found what they could for one another. 

Arya coan’t even bring herself to fret over her siblings finding out--- another reason she’d delayed this---. Gendry worried a bit more, fearing Jon would exile him from the North if he found out. But everyone was too preoccupied to notice or care, including Jon, who really has no room to talk at this point.

Bran, on more than one occasion, has asked Arya why Jon and Sansa being together doesn’t bother her more.

She assumes that normally, it would. But at this time? She has her own life, and she has other, far more pressing matters to worry over. Even where Jon and Sansa are concerned: Sansa is kidnapped, almost certainly possessed, and Jon looks on the brink of madness. 

Aside from them, personally, though, there’s the fact that an army of undead monsters are coming to attack Winterfell. 

It’s a bit of an issue.

Jon has stationed her on the North walls with the ranged and anti-siege division. She’s spent practically the last five days right here, drilling the men, overseeing production of supplies, going over strategies. She’s even been practicing with her boomstick from up here. 

Mastering this weapon is a whole other matter. She’s only just managed to start holding herself still when it shoots. Or, rather, still enough to remain on her feet. Keeping her hands steady is another matter. 

Lord Ash has made her a little looking-scope for the top to help her aim, and given her more instructions, but she’s still can’t shoot the way she does with a bow and arrow. Some of his instructions remind her of Syrio, though. “You’ve got to be flexible, and make the rifle an extension of your body.”

“Rifle” is another word for “boomstick”. So is “gun”. He also refers to it as a “baby”. 

Another one of Arya’s primary tasks over the past few days has been interpreting the “Promised One”.

Perhaps it is a habit she developed from trying to learn Braavosi during her time abroad, but she takes notes on all of their guest’s turns of phrase and words, the context of them, and been able to understand him a bit better than the others. More than once, she’s been called on to handle communication mishaps between Ash and others.

He refers to many things as “Baby.” He calls her “Baby”, and indeed, calls lots of women and girls “Baby”, “Sweetheart”, and “Hun.” He calls his “classic” that as well. And his weapons.

The men are usually called “man”, “Dude”, “Buddy”, “Bud”, “Bub”, and sometimes “Buster.” He refers to people as “Cats”, “Folks”, “Knuckleheads”, “Screwheads”, “Motherfuckers”, “Primitives” and a bunch of other things that hardly seem complimentary.

It probably helps that she’s one of the few people who truly feel like he’s worth listening to regarding things aside from enhancing weapons and “the classic”. 

Practically everyone is utterly furious with the man. And aside from his expertise on the technology he has brought with him, he’s seen as an utter idiot. Arya understands why. All that was asked was that he say three word properly once he had the book. He was able to destroy a bunch of monsters, but couldn’t recite seven syllables? They weren’t even hard to pronounce. 

That being said, Arya is a little sympathetic. It could be hard to remember things like that when you’d just been tossed around by evil spirits for hours. On top of that, she had a question in the back of her mind that she didn’t dare mention to anyone: Since saying the words was that important, why didn’t someone simply write them down on some paper for him to take with him?

It seemed obvious to her. 

Still, memorizing the words shouldn’t have been so hard. And her sister is now one of those things, and they all might lose everything to these creatures. She understands why people don’t care to listen to him much.

Especially given his rudeness.

Since fucking up on such a spectacular level and giving his big speech, Ash has gotten a bit better. He doesn’t call anyone “primitives” to their faces, just under his breath when he thinks no one is listening. He’s more cordial to Jon and Bran. He congratulates people when they succeed in “suping up” (building, improving or repairing) “The Classic” or one of his weapons. He hasn’t spoken of them sending him home since. And he seems genuinely concerned about Sansa.

But he’s still brash, uncouth, arrogant, and dismissive. 

There’s also much, much about battle tactics he doesn’t understand. Ash has elicited at least half a dozen eyerolls during war councils. 

He’s contributed so much, though. Enough to actually make people feel hopeful. 

A number of his suggestions have proven controversial, though. Such as petitioning leaders outside the North and Vale--- including the Lannisters!--- for aid. Even Arya didn’t like that. It was just invitation for another invasion. 

“You don’t know the Lannisters, Lord Ash,” she told him during one meeting, “They’re just as bad as the enemy we’re fighting!”

“Oh? So they infect every place they go with evil?”

“Yes!” Jon had answered furiously, “They put the North and the Riverlands under the rule of people who turned weddings into massacres, who hunted people for sport, and flayed people that didn’t agree with them! Literally, the Boltons did all of those things. One of them raped Sansa! The Lannisters tried to rape her as well! And they sent Ser Gregor the Mountain into the Riverlands! He raided and burnt villages and tortured the inhabitants to death! The Lannisters regularly wipe out entire families, murder babies, and start wars on a regular basis! Even when we were willing to call on them, they denied us aid and instead sent traitors who nearly destroyed all of our defenses! I’ve entreated these enemies for aid before, Williams, for the good of the people, and gotten worse than nothing. And even if they could be trusted for once, there’s no way they’ll get here in time to help us!”

“Send the messages anyways. At least then, if we fall, they’ll have an idea what’s coming. Whatever the Lannisters are, there’s a lot of people in their areas that aren’t at fault.” Ash had replied. Then he paused. “Did you say they murdered babies?”

“Cersei Lannister’s son ordered all of Robert Baratheon’s bastards to be slaughtered by the City Watch,” Arya told him, “And that the ones outside the capital be hunted down. That included babies. Sansa was there when it happened.”

“Cersei’s father Tywin ordered that my half-siblings be killed by Ser Gregor the Mountain twenty years ago. My sister was three and my brother was newborn. Their skulls were smashed against a wall,” Jon murmurs. “My uncle witnessed the presentation of their corpses. Ser Gregor also raped and murdered their mother. And that’s who the Lannisters later sent to terrorize the Riverlands.”

“And hunting people for sport?”

“The favorite pastime of Ramsay Bolton, son of Roose, who was put into power over the North by the Lannisters,” Ser Davos informs him, “Ramsay liked hunting people, raping the women, and having his dogs devour them alive. He also liked torturing people. Beating them, cutting them, mutilating them.”

Arya’s fists tightened. “My sister was forced into marrying Ramsay. He didn’t want to ruin her pretty face, but he enjoyed doing all sorts of things each night when he forced himself on her.”

“The Lannisters legitimized Ramsay and put his father in power after they agreed to betray our family.” Jon continues

“They murdered my mother and brother,” Arya says, “And countless other Northmen at our uncle’s wedding. I might also mention that before Sansa was forced to marry Ramsay, she was forced to marry one of the Lannisters. This was after a year of her being a prisoner and being tortured by Cersei’s son.”

“Luckily, she was forced to marry one of the better ones, who drew the line at forcing himself on a child,” Jon continues, “But he’s gone now.”

“Oh, and before anyone was at war,” Arya adds, “One of them threw Bran out a tower window. That’s how he became crippled. They also had another innocent boy and an animal murdered just to hurt Sansa and I. We used to all have wolves like Jon’s, you see. When Cersei’s son, Joffrey attacked me, my wolf, Nymeria, defended me. I had to make her run away. And so Cersei ordered that Sansa’s wolf, Lady, who hadn’t even been there, be killed. They also liked torturing common folk to death for information.”

“Oh, and Cersei Lannister burned a building full of people, including her son’s wife and half the royal court, to the ground in order to assert her power,” Jon finished.

“But I can see why you’d want to invite them and their armies here,” Arya remarked.

Ash had groaned. “Point taken. But there must be others you can write to. Write to them.”

“We can’t trust them. Most of them also would like to take over the North.”

“Do it anyways! If they overstay their welcome, we’ll kick their asses to the curb! But we need all the numbers we can get!”

“What makes you think they’ll even get here in time?”

“Nothing. But if there’s a chance, we’ll have to take it.”

Jon had relented on sending word to his aunt, to the Reach, and to Dorne. But no one is confident.

And, shock of shocks, there wasn’t enough time for anyone to get here. Their scouts from the north sent word, and now the monsters were minutes away.

She leans upon the edge of the rampart, chainmail and leathers on, scanning the landscape for signs of their enemies. It’s a vast field with thick stretches of trees and hills in the distance. The same battlefield on which Stannis tried to take the North, on which Jon and Sansa defeated Ramsay Bolton. Now, Jon’s army surrounds the walls on each side, the lands around Winterfell planted with landmarkers. It’s a battlefield again.

Finally, she sees it: off in the distance, a tiny flame.

“ENEMIES SIGHTED!” Someone shouts from a high tower. “COMING FROM THE NORTHEAST! FLYING SKELETONS SPOTTED!”

Bells start ringing, horns start blowing, and shouts begin. Arya screams for her men to begin assembling their explosives and shields. Her belts are studded with shells for her boomstick, and she leans back to get into position, kneeling to peer off into the distance through her looking-scope. 

Even with it, she can’t make out everything, but she can confirm the winged beasts from before are moving towards them, and fast. 

“PREPARE THE CANOPY AND THE MOLOTOV ARROWS!” She shouts, “FIRST WAVE IS COMING BY AIR! ON MY COMMAND, WE SHOOT!”

“I CAN SEE ‘EM, MILADY!” One of her people shouts. And indeed, the creatures are coming fast.

“LOAD!” Arya cries, securing her shells. “DRAW!” She cocks it. “AIM!” About six of the winged creatures are a half-mile from them. “FIRE!”

Some hit, some do not. Two are brought down by ballistic arrows. Arya, hands shaking, hurries to reload. Both shells miss again. The monsters begin swooping down on the ground troops. If she misses, she could hurt their own forces. She hears Jon call for the men to draw their canopy, but those shields will do little against ballistics…

Arya swallows heavily and tries to focus. She spots one of the creatures, and aims. The boomstick is part of her. Loose. Focus. 

She fires, and, to her delight, the monster shrieks and drops from the air. Another two are grounded by her men.  The last one starts circling overhead, like a vulture.

But more come. The ground troops get closer, but they’re preceded by another group of the bone-bats. And when they draw closer, Arya sees it: One of them is being ridden, and not by a skeleton.

Arya screams when she sees who it is, but not quickly enough to stop a couple of the men from firing at it. The rider directs her mount to dodge them, and actually cackles when one of the arrows hits a different bone-bat instead. 

“NOT THAT ONE!” Arya cries. “THAT’S MY SISTER!”

Sansa’s bat draws close, close enough for them to hear her inhuman, shrieking laughter. 

“DON’T WANT TO HURT YOUR DAINTY SISTER, DO YOU?! DON’T SHOOT! DON’T SHOOT!” The creature shrieks before moving and jumping from its saddle, just to be caught by another of the monsters. Sansa does this again and again, jumping between creatures too quickly for them to know which one to shoot. 

Arya screams. “EVERYONE, AIM FOR A DIFFERENT BAT! WHOEVER AIMS AT THE SAME ONE I AM, FIRE WHEN I COMMAND IT! EVERYONE ELSE, CANOPY!”

She directs her boomstick at the one holding Sansa. Cackling, the monster taunts, “Ready to kill your sister at last, Arya Horseface?!”

Arya touches the trigger and just as she’s about to squeeze, Sansa jumps.

“NOW!”

Three men fire, and the monster that Sansa just vacated is blown to pieces. 

Arya aims at Sansa again, who giggles. 

“MISSED, YOU STUPID BRAT! BUT THEN, YOU NEVER COULD HANDLE A MOVING TARGET!”

Cock. Jump. “FIRE!”

A second bone-bat goes down, and Sansa’s made it to a third.

“YOU'RE AS GOOD A WARRIOR AS YOU ARE A LADY, ARYA! STILL A DISAPPOINTMENT!”

  
Cock. Jump. “FIRE!”

Sansa finally catches on when she sees her third mount go down, but she keeps grinning, and retreats. The ground forces get closer, close enough to engage Jon’s men, and the bone-bats begin swooping down over their own forces. It takes Arya a few seconds to realize what they’re doing.

“REGULAR FLAME ARROWS! Flank E, keep the explosives and be prepared to fire when I call.” She cries out, unsheathing Needle. “Prepare for melee combat!”

The bone-bats swoop up dozens of demon soldiers: wights, deadites, walkers, and begin dropping large groups of them amidst Jon’s flanks. They carry yet more towards the ramparts and allow the creatures to jump down. 

“CANOPY!” Arya cries. They do it quick enough that only one man is snatched up by an empty-handed bone-bat. The monsters land hard stop the shields, many skewered by the spikes they attached. One lands atop her shield, impaled on its spikes.

“FLANK E! FIRE!” Arya cries out. Four more bone-bats go down. She calls for another fire. Two more. She and her other men remain huddled under their shields.

Then she hears it. She’s skewered a Deadite. And not just any deadite.

“Gods, Arya, can’t you do anything right?” A cruel, yet familiar voice croons. “With all your water-dancing, you can’t even be trusted to fight with the real army. You’re still a girl, after all. That’s why Father let you run free in King’s Landing, you know. He’d given up on you. You did nothing but cause trouble, and everyone was better off with you getting yourself killed. Lady’s dead because of you. And you never found Nymeria again. You know why? Because  _ she knew what you were. She didn’t want you. You killed her litter-mate. You killed Mycah.” _

The voice is amplified by her shield, and Arya tries to hold back tears. “FIRE!”

More bone-bats go down.

“TO ARMS!” Arya cries out.

The canopy is lowered. Some men shove the demons stuck their shield off the sides of the walls. Arya lowers her own.

Sansa is indeed skeered by hers, and seems downright pleased about it. Arya watches as what was once her sister daintily pushes herself off of the spikes, green, black, and red blood spurting from the holes they’ve made in her stomach, chest, and neck. Seemingly immune to pain, Sansa wipes some of the green blood onto her finger and licks it, eyes locked on Arya’s. Arya almost vomits.

“Even now, I’m more graceful than you,” her sister sneers. 

It’s not just the green blood, or the cruelty. Sansa’s skin is ashen and mottled. Her eyes are completely white. She’s bony and her teeth are like yellow fangs.

“Prettier than you, too,” the demon adds. “Arya Horseface! Arya Horseface!”

Arya’s grip tightens on Needle’s hilt, and she lunges. Sansa, quick as lightning, dodges. And continues cackling. 

“You know what the best part of this is, Arya?!” She says, avoiding the blows, “Even if you manage to win, it’ll just make sure that everyone else hates you as much as I always have! Especially Jon! You’ll have killed the love of his life! And everyone knows how jealous you always were of Sansa. Bran and Jon both will hate you! So will the North! How conflicting it must be for you, always wanting to be rid of your perfect sister, finally having the chance, but at the cost of everyone else you love! Even if your pathetic forces win, Arya, you’re doomed!”

Arya tries to focus, watches the demon’s movements.

“I doubt even Gendry will want you! After what he’s been through, I doubt he’ll be very sympathetic to your kinslaying!”

Quick as snake. Silent as a shadow. 

Arya lets the tears fall, and the demon cackles more. She takes the time to spot a platform and a corner. She stops lunging and flips, moves to just the right place to back the creature into the corner. The Sansa-demon doesn’t even notice--- until finally, Arya runs Needle through the center of her chest and out her back, pegging her to a wooden column.

Something changes, though. The creature shrieks and lowers its head, but then the shriek turns into a wail of agony. The mottled skin becomes peach-colored, and smooth. Red blood gushes from the wounds, not green or black. Sansa lifts her head, revealing her Tully-blue eyes, filled with pain and confusion.

“Arya?” She says softly, her voice somewhat choked. She weakly tries to grab Needle, but her hands fall limp when she lifts them. “Arya, where am I? Arya, it hurts, it hurts so bad! Please, Arya, help me! Tell me, what is going on?! Where’s Jon? Where’s Bran?” She coughs up blood and sobs. “Arya, please… Did you do this? Why?! I thought… I thought…” She sobs again. “I thought you didn’t hate me anymore. I thought you forgave me. Why have you killed me, Sister? Did I hurt you that much when we were children? Is it because of Jon?”

She continues to sob. She sounds just like the night Lady was killed. 

“I love you, Arya. I’m so sorry. I love you. Please don’t hate me as I die. It wasn’t all bad, was it? Remember when we were little? And the thunder would frighten you? And I’d sing that song to calm you down. I was the only one you’d go to during a storm, because you didn’t want anyone else knowing you were afraid. Not even Mother. And I’d sing you to sleep, ‘Nymeria feared no lightning, Nymeria feared no storms…’”

“‘Nymeria was as strong and brave as the waters of the Rhoyne…’” Arya steps back. She sobs as well. “I’m so sorry, Sansa. I had to! Please understand, I had to! The demons got you!”

“I understand! I do! I tried to stop myself, I did, but it was like being caught in a nightmare! I felt every moment of it, I saw it, I heard it! And I’m so sorry, Arya. None of that was me, and it wasn’t true, I swear it. I love you. I’ve always loved you! Please forgive me!”

“Forgive  _ me! _ ”

“I do! I swear it!” Sansa holds out her arms.

“I do too!”

“Please, Little Sister, hold me while I die! I don’t want to be alone!”

Arya nods. It’s all she can do. She yanks Needle from her sister’s bleeding chest and embraces her, sobbing. The two sisters hold each other, slipping to the ground. Arya feels Sansa’s warm blood soak her, and hates herself. 

Then Sansa’s sobs change. They change into laughs. And the laughter grows.

Arya’s heart stops as they both begin to float into the air. Needle is yanked from her hand, and a claw grabs her throat. 

The demon is back, and it dangles Arya over the forty-foot drop to the ground by the throat. 

Arya struggles and grabs at the wrist, trying to breathe.

“Good-bye you stupid, ugly, little brat! And just so you know, that slut sister of yours is watching this whole thing!”

“San…Sa…” Arya chokes out. “I---- I’ll... find... you, I… prom… ise… Sis….ter…”

The demon doesn’t drop her. Instead, it throws her…. Right into some sacks of powder a few yards away. The creature makes a face, then cackles, and throws itself over the edge instead.

 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

 

Ash:

The good news is that Valyrian Steel is effective against Deadites. The bad news is that “dragonglass”, as these screwheads call it, is not.

They have a lot more dragonglass than Valyrian Steel. 

These “wight” things come with their own issues. They can’t be tricked or distracted, they just move. They’re stronger than the deadites, and lopping off limbs has little effect. And the moment one of their guys dies, they become one.

That’s not counting the living folks who get possessed. Or the overall morale of their own forces, which is low. It’s hard to keep that up when men have to dismember their friends and family.

The fact that their army is untrained in operating explosives doesn’t help either. 

Still, they’re doing better than expected. The wights light up like Christmas trees and burn up like Dracula in sunlight in the sunlight. Then they’re gone, for good. Poof. And it’s quite entertaining to see a giddy Deadite suddenly no longer surrounded by a group of wights, ripe for the picking. The fire does manage to thin out their numbers quite a bit. Especially with explosives that blow deadites apart. Instant dismemberment!

But army of darkness has means to refresh their numbers. Their side does not. And they only have one chainsaw. 

Groups of demons infiltrate their ranks early on, but they were prepared for that. 

Ash fights along King Fancy-pants, mounted until their horses get possessed and they’re thrown on their asses. They manage to crack some skulls, but their army starts getting broken up and broken down. 

Fancy-pants can handle himself in a fight, though, Ash has to give him that. He knows exactly where to aim and how to aim it. Then there’s that giant-ass wolf of his, who seems resistant to possession and goes everywhere they need him on instinct, as if the king and the animal are communicating psychically.

At a certain point, though, the two men end up back to back. King Fancy-pants shatters one of those blue “white walker” motherfuckers with his fancy-pants sword, and Ash lops the final limb off a deadite.   
  


“I think it’s time for the classic, Majesty,” Ash says to his royal comrade.

The cousin-fucker nods. “Agreed. Send the signal.”

In addition to the many, many molotovs they’ve engineered for this thing, they’ve also created a few regular fireworks, for signals. Ash sprints for the designated station within a trench, pulls the purple device from a pile, and sets it off. A shower of violet sparks fly through the air. It doesn’t take long for them to hear it. The revving.

Ash runs back into position and the North gates open. 

He almost weeps from pride when he sees it. His baby’s all grown up!

The Classic, the Oldsmobile, is now a tank, with a multi-story tower of destruction poking up, inch-thick steel siding, catapults at the windows, spikes sticking out the front bumper, and an engine which can give a man a stiffy through the noise it makes alone. It’s a rolling tower of hard-rock death. 

It roars out of the gate, parting the armies like the Red Sea, and rolls right up to Jon and Ash. Both front doors open. 

“Hop in, M’Lords!” Calls out the guy Ash calls “Onions”. King Cousin-fucker calls him Ser Davos. The other-other designated driver.

Onions rather reluctantly turns the wheel over to Ash and climbs in the back. Ash hand him the Boomstick.

“Start manning the Boom-tower, Onions, do it just as I taught you.”

Onions rather eagerly begins to climb. Jon shuts his door, and Ash revs the engine, then slips it into third gear.

“Groovy.”

They race right towards their foes. King Jon loads the window catapult with molotovs and sends them flying. Davos begins firing the Remington above them. They plow through deadites and wights. 

“HAHA!” Jon cries, “Their ground is all on fire!”

“IT COULD BE MORE ON FIRE!” Ash cheers, “LET’S REMIND THEM OF THE HELL WE’RE SENDING THEM BACK TO!”

They move deeper into the rank,  towards the higher-ups. The sort of monsters that can’t be ended by fire alone. Jon looks at Ash.  “I think it’s time that I took to the hood.”

“Be my guest, Majesty!”

Jon reaches out and grabs one of the long bungee cords hanging down from the tower. Bungee cords that Ash had actually meant for bungee jumping, once. But now, they were for a different purpose. Jon hitches the end onto his new belt, then climbs out the side window, onto the Classic’s hood. Ash grins as the king hurries to strap himself in completely, finds his balance, stands atop the moving car, and brandishes his sword. 

He slides and leaps around the hood, kept atop only by the ropes Ash purchased (at a generous employee discount!) from the sporting goods department of S-Mart, moving about to stab and dismember every evil creature in their path. White Walkers begin shattering en-masse.

“I’LL TAKE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU FUCKERS!”

Ash can tell by the king’s war cries that he isn’t prone to cursing. But Ash cackles even as he tries to see around the bloodthirsty medieval king bouncing around the hood of his car.

The burning fields during a red sunset, the fiery projectiles, the exploding demons, the hail of crystalline shards of White Walker, the madman on his hood, the shots coming from above, the roaring engine. It’s like Hell, but Ash’s kind of Hell.

“WOOHOO! HOPE Y’ALL ARE ON THE PILL, BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO SHOOT!” Ash cries. “AND! I! AIN’T! PULLING! OUT!”

Alas, just as he’s about to get his money-shot, the equivalent of his mom charging into the bathroom while he’s “reading” a spread on Barbi Benton happens. There’s a cackle overhead, and body slams into the hood from above, head twisted around so Ash sees it’s face: a very dead Onions.

Jon almost reacts. But when he looks up towards the Boom-tower, he freezes. 

The only reason he avoids a death-blow from the tall figure leaping onto the hood is because Ash calls for him to look out. Jon leaps out of the way, but his arm gets cut. Badly.

The figure on the hood bends over and looks straight at Ash, grinning. Or, rather, his eyes were. The figure only has half a jaw. 

But the half-jaw he has is big. Very big. Big enough that despite the mottled skin and the armor made of human flesh, Ash recognizes him. 

Bad Ash. 

Bad Ash punches right through the hood of the classic and rips out part of the engine. The vehicle stops, sending Bad Ash and Onions’ body flying. It send Jon flying, too, but the bungee cords pull him back so he lands hard against the hood. Ash thanks whatever god there might be that he remembered his seat belt.

He unbuckles himself and hurries out, revving up the chainsaw as he does. He leans over Jon, who appears dazed.

“Come on, Buddy, wake up,” Ash says, patting the king’s face with his hand. “We haven’t gotten Sansa back yet!”

Jon stirs, but before the two men can exchange words, there’s a cry, “OH, HAVEN’T YOU?!”

Ash looks up. There she is. Her auburn hair sticks out like Enstein’s, her nice skin is yellow-white and flaking, her eyes are milky and unfocused, she’s bony as Hell, but it’s her.

Sansa. With the boomstick. 

She slides herself down the tower, landing beside Jon, and caresses the rifle sensually. 

“Come now, Boys, you found me beautiful once.”

Ash glares. “Baby, you got real ugly.”

He hits her up side the head with the blunt part of the chainsaw. She flips off the hood onto the ground, but gets up quickly. 

“Sansa, please,” Jon pleads, struggling to unhook his cords, “I know you’re in there, somewhere.”

“OH, SHE’S IN HERE! I’M DEVOURING HER SOUL, AND I’LL DEVOUR YOURS, AS WELL!”

Both men struggle into position, but they’re surprised when the Sansa-deadite does something unexpected: instead of taking aim at them, she turns and throws the rifle. It spins through the air, and is caught in one single, mottled, enormous hand.

“Thanks, Sugar.”

Ash had actually forgotten about Bad Ash for a second. He hurriedly helps Jon from his restraints and yanks him to his feet as Bad Ash and Sansa move towards each other.

“Look, I know more about these things, and preserving the people they’re in more than you, so I’ll take Red.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” the king snaps, “Leave me to the one with the boom stick.”

“Look, that thing came from me, alright? He’s me. Just… all those things you’ve wanted to do to me over the past week? Unleash all of that onto him. Only, pretend he’s actually made it with Sansa.”

He sees the king’s color rise. And he also sees the two demons move side by side, and Bad Ash’s hand make it to Sansa’s ass. “In fact, if I were to guess, Bad Ash actually has made it with Bad Sansa, so….”

He’s never seen a man move that fast. Jon knocks Bad Ash to the ground before the demon even has a chance to shoot, and promptly stabs his opponent in the face. Bad Sansa shrieks and begins tearing at Jon. Ash lunges toward her, yanking her away and running the chainsaw through her stomach. 

Impaled, Bad-Sansa turns her head a hundred and eighty degrees, stares right at Ash, and begins pulling herself deeper onto the blade, closer to him. The pain when she claws is face almost makes him lose consciousness. But he leans forward, until her feet reach the ground, then promptly stomps on her instep, then kicks her in the left shin so hard, it breaks.  
  


He begins to run, revving his chainsaw up with Bad Sansa still on it, and hurries toward Jon and Bad Ash. His evil double manages to grab the boom stick again and knocks Jon over the head with the blunt end. He kneels over the king and begins to aim…  
  


….When Ash lops off one of his legs. Bad Ash topples over, howling. Unfortunately, the victory is short-lived, as Bad Sansa grabs the boomstick herself and beats Ash with it, rendering him immobile long enough to dislodge herself from the chainsaw. 

She glances down at the giant, dripping chasm where her lower stomach used to be, then smiles at them and shrugs. “Oh well, no prince or princess after all! So sorry, Lover! Baby is gone!”

“What?!” Jon cries. It distracts them both long enough for Bad Sansa to shoot Jon in the foot, then promptly tackle Ash. She holds him down, hands on his neck. “COME GET HIM, BABY!”

Ash watches in horror as his double pulls his severed leg to his stump, and the limb re-attaches itself. For a second, despite everything, all Ash can think is how unfair that is.

Then his double takes the boomstick and stands over him, taking aim as Bad Sansa giggles.

“Now who’s the one with the gun?”

Ash closes his eyes. But the shot doesn’t happen. Instead, there’s an earsplitting roar, followed by screams from both demons. 

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Sansa screams, having sprung away from Ash. 

He looks up. Flying overhead are more winged beasts, bigger and louder than any of the bone-bats. Also, breathing fire. Some of the fire is green, white, and dark red. 

Both Bad Sansa and Bad Ash start scrambling away, clearly terrified. 

“SHE CAME!” Jon cries out, clutching his foot, “By the Old Gods, she’s here!"

“Who?”

“My aunt! THE MOTHER OF DRAGONS!"  
  


Bad Sansa shrieks and begins to flee. 

In seconds, the already burning hellscape of the battlefield is certainly “more on fire” than it was before. If anything, it seems to be nothing but fire.

One of the dragons begins making for the ground, swooping downward, and landing right in Bad Sansa’s path. There’s a burst of flame that burns Bad Ash, causing him to start melting.

“BOOMSTICK, NOW!”

Ash doesn’t even pause to register where the command comes from, he just follows it. He grabs the dropped Remington, aims, and fires. Bad Ash explodes into a thousand pieces. 

“DRACARYS!” 

There’s another burst of flame, and this time it’s Sansa in flames.

“HOLD FIRE! NOW!”

Another voice cries out, “KLAATU! BERADA! NIKTO! DRACAR! ANMORG! VALYR! KLAATU! BERADA! LUMINOS! MERRICKO! DRACAR! VALYR!”

The flaming figure of Bad Sansa collapses to the ground, and the flames disappear in a haze of smoke.

But no one else explodes.

Ash stares in shock as the giant, black dragon lowers its wings and two people get off. The first person pulls the other onto her back, and hurries toward the center of the smoke.

“Sansa!”

Ash recognizes the voice. It’s the kid’s. The crippled kid’s. He’d been the one who cried out the funny words. 

The smoke begins to clear.

 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

 

Sansa:

She’s cold and filthy. She can tell that even before she opens her eyes. She coughs violently, her whole body hurting. But she’s in less pain than she was moments prior. 

Her eyes sting when she opens them, and she has to blink several times. Two figures are crouched over her. Bran is one. The other is the most beautiful woman Sansa has ever seen, with silver-gold hair and bright violet eyes.

“What---What’s happening?” She murmurs. “Am I back?”

“Oh, thank the gods, yes!” Her brother embraces her furiously. 

“SANSA!”

She looks over. Jon is rushing towards her, limping on a bloody foot. An image of herself aiming the boomstick at him and doing that flashes through her mind. Jon falls down beside her, seizes her face, and kisses every inch of it. “Oh, my darling, I was so afraid! I thought you gone forever!”

“I… I…” Things come flashing back. Arya. The disgusting beast with half a jaw. Davos! Needle, and the chainsaw.”

She begins to scramble and clutches her chest and abdomen, looking down at her body. They’re all as they should be. There’s no question of it. She’s naked. Her body looks just as it did before.

Bran yanks off his cloak and covers her. “You must be freezing.”  
  


More things flash back. “I killed Davos!” Sansa sobs. Even now, she can feel his neck cracking in her hands. 

“It wasn’t you, Red,” says a familiar voice, “It was that thing that got inside you. Trust me.”

Sansa manages to sit up. “Thank you, Lord Ash.”

“Do you remember everything?” Jon asks.

“I----” She is cut off by another flash, though. Cruel blue eyes. A head of horns all around, like a crown. “OH GODS! HE’S STILL ALIVE! HE’S HERE!”

“Calm down, Lady Sansa,” the woman says, “My dragons are wiping away the rest of that army of darkness. All of those evil dead things. Even the white walkers!”

“No, no, you don’t understand! He’s not with them! And they all can come back as long as he lives!” Sansa tries to struggle to her feet. “He’s close! He’s close!”

“The Night’s King!” Jon says suddenly. “I know who she means. The king of all the White Walkers and Whites. Who raises the dead!”

“He’s coming for us, Jon. He’s going to kill all of you, and take me again!”

As if it could understand her words, the big, black dragon rises into the air and moves away from the patch of trees he’d settled by. Even the woman, who Sansa guesses to be Daenerys Targaryen, looks perturbed.

No matter how hard Sansa clutches the cloak about herself, she grows colder.

“He’s coming, he’s close!” She whispers. Memories flood back. The wager between the leader of the Deadites and the Night’s King. Taking her broke the hearts of their chief foes. There was a bet between them: if the lord of the Kandarrion Demons managed to defeat the chosen ones, he got to keep her. If he failed, she becomes the Night’s Queen, instead.

Clearly, her other would-be groom is undaunted by the destruction of the army. He may even have hoped for it.

“He’s here,” Bran whispers.

And indeed, out from the clearing he comes, icy blue from horned-head to pointed toe. Hideous and beautiful. Calm and determined.

“Got some more of that voodoo up your sleeve, Kid?” Lord Ash whispers to Bran.

“No. The Night’s King is unstoppable. I destroyed the Kandarrion Lord with words from the Necronomicon, but the Necronomicon doesn’t have the key to destroying the Others. Only the Children of the Forest could----”

“Icy steel, dragon’s fire. Ice and Fire.”

Sansa says this aloud without realizing it. 

“What?”

Sansa meets the Night’s King’s eyes. “Run.”

Ash lifts Bran, Daenerys grabs Jon by the collar, and the two of them drag her family away, fleeing. Both Bran and Jon struggle and protest, but both were too immobilized to do anything.

Sansa stays where she is. The King walks towards her languidly. 

He’s almost gentle, as he leans down and helps Sansa to her feet. She trembles.

“I’ll go with you,” she tells him, “Willingly. Just… Just turn around, take us all back, and leave Westeros in peace. Do that, and I promise I’ll be your queen, do whatever you ask. I beg you…”

The Night’s King cocks his head, then pulls her into a kiss.

And she knows.

That’s not going to work. The Night’s King doesn’t want her. Not that much, anyways. He wants a queen, and he’d prefer it be her, but not because of Sansa herself. No, this is about Jon. It’s about breaking the heart of his chief foe and making him lose the will to live before killing him. The only reason the King retreated during the last Long Night was because Azor Ahai already sacrificed Nissa Nissa before they did battle. This King didn’t just care about invading and killing, he wanted to take the souls of the heroes he faced himself. He wishes to take everything. Azor Ahai robbed him of that chance. That's why he's taken so long to get here: to create a sense of increasing dread and hopelessness. But Jon has Sansa. The Night’s King would never give up once he had Sansa, taking her was just a part of his overall plan. Taking everything was the point, and he’d have all or nothing. None of this is about Sansa, it’s about Jon.

And Daenerys. But the key to destroying her was destroying her dragons, first. They are her Nissa Nissa. But getting Jon out of the way first is easier.

This noble sacrifice is pointless, stupid, and vain.

Sansa knows this. She knew this before he kissed her. Before she made the offer. This isn’t the first time this thing has kissed her, and his kisses tended to communicate more information than he realized.

The proposal is as much the point as she is. 

She pulls back and smiles. 

“You misunderstand, Your Grace. I never intended to go anywhere with you. I just needed to distract you.”

She yanks herself away and hurls herself as far as she can from the monster.

“DRACARYS!” 

Red flames shoot down at the Night’s King. He struggles, but his movements slow. He begins to melt.

“GOT YOU!” Jon is atop Ghost, who charges into the clearing. Longclaw is brandished, unsheathed and, as if jousting, Jon and Ghost charge right for the king, skewering him.

The fire stops and the King becomes dust. 

There’s a long pause. And Sansa stares. They’re truly gone.

She and Jon exchange looks and begin laughing from relief. It’s an oddly beautiful moment.

Interrupted by a wolf-whistle. Lord Ash saunters into the clearing, smirking. He moves up close to her and pulls her into his remaining arm again. “It may be winter, but that was still hands-down the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She assumes this is meant as a compliment. Thankfully, Ash yelps and springs away from her a moment later, clutching his backside.

“SON OF A BITCH BIT ME RIGHT IN THE ASS!” He yells. 

“We’d take offense,” Jon says, smiling behind the ‘Promised One’, “If that weren’t quite literally true. Sweetling?”

He offers her his cloak. She puts it on atop the one Bran gave her. And he helps her onto the direwolf’s back.

“You,” her lover informs her, “Are never going to be bait again. You’d never have gotten away with it if not for my foot.”

“Speaking of which,” she says, “Let’s get it and the rest of you back to Winterfell to be fixed up. I’d like to save it, if possible.”

“Me too, believe it or not. I’m rather fond of that foot. It’s been around for quite a while.”

“Oh, what, so I don’t get a ride?” Ash asks. “That thing just bit my ass!”

“All the more reason you shouldn’t want to ride him,” Sansa replies, “Besides, it’s too much weight.”

Luckily for their guest, the dragon swoops down again. 

“Get on, ‘Lord Shagmaster Supreme’,” Daenerys Targaryen offers, gesturing to the place behind Bran, “That is, if you’re not afraid to be driven by a woman.”

Lord Ash eyes her up and down. “No ma’am. In fact, I happen to be all for Women’s Lib…”

They return to Winterfell to cheering crowds. 

Thankfully, only part of Jon’s foot is amputated. It includes his two smallest toes, but the damage is manageable. Sansa, upon intense examination, is declared fully intact. Their losses are at a minimum. Daenerys Targaryen proves reasonable. She wanted the Vale back, but the North can be independent.

They even manage to repair Ash’s ‘Classic’, though it takes weeks. Still, their guest emerges from beneath it one day, greasy-faced, and grinning. “You’ll never kill the Classic!”

Both Daenerys and Ash stay long enough for all the memorial services, including Davos’s. Sansa almost can’t bring herself to attend his service, thoroughly ashamed.

The Dragon Queen leaves first, but not before hammering out some mutually-advantageous arrangements between their two kingdoms.

Ash tries to convince her to take him with her. “I’ll be your king!”

“That won’t be necessary,” she tells him before pulling her arm away.

Ash leaves reluctantly a week later, stalling in the hope that a message would come from Daenerys declaring that she’d changed her mind. When that doesn’t happen, he loads up his Classic.

“Now, you drive to this cave,” Bran instructs him while pointing out the route on the map he’d made. “And you take three drops of the potion I gave you and recite the words ‘Klaatu Berada Nikto.’ Think you can remember them this time?”

“Yeah, yeah. Klaatu. Berada. Nikto. Got it.”

“Again!”

“Klaatu! Berada! Nikto! I got it! I got it!”

“Good!”

Lord Ash smiles and claps Bran on the back. “Gonna miss you, Kid.”

He moves to Arya and practically lifts her into the air. “Don’t forget to keep the barrel clean, alright, Princess Pistol?”

“Got it.”

“Good. And make sure that blacksmith of yours doesn’t forget how to make shells.”

“He won’t.” Arya actually looks ready to cry.

Reluctantly, Ash turns toward Jon. The two men exchange a respectful handshake.

“Thank you, Lord Ash, for everything.”

“Right back atcha, Fancy Pants. You’re a good man.”

Then it’s Sansa’s turn. Ash looks into her eyes for a long moment. “Hope I didn’t make you jealous with the Dragon queen, Honey. You’re still my number one gal, Red.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sansa!”

“ _ Princess  _ Sansa,” he corrects her, “Queen soon enough, I imagine.” He glances back at Jon. “Sorry I can’t stick around long enough to be your best man, Fancy Pants.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“That’s the spirit! Take care of this one!” He looks at Sansa again. “If I go back to my time and read in the history books that this one didn’t treat you right, I’ll come back just to sock him in the jaw, don’t you worry.”

She pats him condescendingly on the arm. 

“Kiss before I go?”

She sighs and presses her lips to his cheek. “I shall miss you, Lord Ash.”

He smiles, turns on his heel, gets into the classic, and starts the engine. “So long, you primitive screwheads! And Arya!”

In seconds, he’s gone. Sansa sighs with relief and leans against Jon’s chest. 

“By the way, my love, a raven came today from the Citadel.”

“Oh?”

“Winter is ending.”

 


End file.
